


A Brief History of the Americas

by Threewheels



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Gen, Harm to Animals, Harm to Children, No Smut, Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Other, Period-Typical Racism, Wordcount: 30.000-50.000
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-27
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-01 13:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 32,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4021477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threewheels/pseuds/Threewheels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The trials and tribulations of a pair of Homeworld gems stranded on Earth. (Centers around fangem OCs.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. in which agate is left behind

**Author's Note:**

> Hello readers! This story centers primarily (if not entirely) around original fangems (primarily, Agate and a pearl- not THE Pearl, before anyone gets disappointed) and my headcanons for gem-occupied Earth and the fallout from the Gem War.  
> Most of the body of it will take place in varying BCE timeframes (~4000-3000 BCE, to be [quasi]precise), first in South America, then Central and North America, which I will present to the best of my ability. Obviously take this with a spoonful of salt so that it suits the Steven Universe universe better (and because my own knowledge is limited.) I will, however, strive to present the story in a way that is both historically enlightening and entertaining, involving my and others' fangems as human history unfolds around them. Any crit/suggestion is appreciated, especially from folks who are from these areas, so that I can better present them!  
> In any case, I hope you enjoy it, and feel free to contact me!  
> \- Emil Jude

The sounds of the trilling birds had gradually crept back into the still, dry air as she had sat there, hat flopped over her face in the hazy morning sun. She hadn't slept, of course- since the previous night she had settled into a space in the roots of an old tree, split jaggedly in half. She had found a niche that suited her well and observed the comings and goings of the animals on the battlefield. The muddy earth was cracked and dry now, the twisted remains of the plants that had been destroyed were the only thing that signified the jungle that had been there. As the sun rose, the ground glittered.

Many of the animals were too shy to even attempt it after the violence that had spilled over and across it so recently. Birds always seemed to be the first, but at night, they were few and far between. She'd seen a few frightened, gray-brown deer walking past the treeline in a nervous, bobbing pace, skittering insects and their always-hungry various furry predators scrambling over the disturbed earth. Yet, among the scars on the earth and the lives lost, she was unscathed.

This was not a coincidence.

_“Agate!”_

She lifted the hat from her reddish eyes, and twisted to look back around the tree. She had wondered if it was anyone important- that could have been bad- but, luckily, it didn't look like it. It was someone she wasn't really familiar with, though- a grayish Pearl who had spoken to her once or twice in the past few years, usually on some errand from a master Agate had never seen. Her thin hands shook on the bag she was holding. Her clothes and hands were dirty, unusual for a gem of her kind. The gray pearl looked sad and angry but largely unharmed, though her choice of a thin black choker around her neck that Agate hadn't remembered seeing on her before seemed to say she hadn't been as smart as Agate had.

“What? What is it?”  
_“Where were you?”_

Her fist tightened on the bag she was holding and her mouth opened wordlessly as she tried to verbalize something else that she couldn't seem to manage.

“How _could_ you?” she choked. “We _needed_ you.”

Agate stood up, stretched, and shrugged.

“I'm sure you were fine. Don't be so whiny,” she dismissed, and shot her a wide and nasty smile. “Someone will come along and do something helpful here. Maybe the little animals with those sticks and diamonds?” She put her arms out to either side and grasped an imaginary plow, miming someone taking struggling, labored steps forward toward the gray pearl before she laughed and trotted forward towards her. Gray Pearl looked injured by her pantomiming, though, and upon Agate's approach she saw the other gem's round eyes were flooded with tears, her short hair unkempt around a gem with an obvious flaw; a thin fractured piece gone from the upper right portion, a few of the lost layers forming a small matte dip on the shiny surface. Agate hesitated, smile faltering.

“Do I look fine?” Pearl spat at her. She wrenched the bag in her hands open and turned it toward Agate, revealing hundreds of multicolored shards, glittering even through the dust that the pearl had obviously tried to remove. She raised her voice as she thrust it towards Agate, who stepped backward. “Do _they?”_ she demanded.

Snarling, Agate pulled her hat from her head, swatting at the pearl's hands.  
“ Don't show me that! I didn't ask to come down to this stupid fucking planet! Hardly anybody did. Why should I fight other gems over something nobody will explain to me? I don't care what other people do. It's not my fault.”  
The pearl clutched the bag to her chest, glaring down at her.

“You were supposed to fight with us! We're gems, you're supposed to be on our side!”  
“So _what?_ Those other gems are gems, too. It doesn't matter! I don't owe anybody anything.”

“People _died,_ Agate! _You ran away!”_ She screamed. _“You're a coward!”_

“How dare you!” She dropped her hat and raised her hand toward the gem on her shoulder, ready to fight, but the Pearl didn't move. She stared at her, still and stubborn, mouth drawn into a thin, angry line.  
“Go ahead,” she offered, witheringly. “There's nobody left who would care."

Agate stopped. The location of the other homeworld gems hadn't occurred to her.

“Where is everyone?” she asked.

“Leaving. We lost.”

“Leaving?” Agate repeated, anxiously. She dropped her hand. “Back to homeworld, leaving? No more negotiations?”

“I meant what I said,” Pearl said softly, wiping the tears from her cheeks and smearing the now wet dirt on her hand on her cheek. 的 thought if I- maybe if I could just find the missing piece, or find something to help someone who was important, they'd let me leave.... I don't want to be here. I can't do it.”

“What about whats-her-name? Whoever's pearl you are?”  
Gray Pearl shook her head quickly, looking downward.  
“She's... she didn't...” She sounded almost ashamed. She was staring at the ground. “She didn't make it.”

“Well, you're a pearl, I'm sure somebody would want you-”

“You don't understand- they said I was going to die anyway.” Her shoulders raised as she clutched the bag again. “I'm not... I'm not worth the space it would take, and there's... a lot of problems, so I- because she's dead, I don't have anyone who would want-” Her whole body seemed to tense. She clutched the bag of gem shards close to her thin chest as she sunk to her knees. She sat there for a moment, before she turned her face upward, staring at the flat white sky, before her head lolled forward, staring back at the gem shards in her bag. Voice heavy, she continued:

“I suppose that they're right.”

Agate crouched down in front of her, tilting her head as she looked at the damage.

“Well, it... it doesn't look that bad. It's just a chip. You regenerated, didn't you?”

“It's missing.”

“Someone can fix it.”

“There's no point. There's no gem for me to attend to. That's a pearl's job.”

She sighed and closed the drawstrings on the bag. Agate put her hand, broad and short, on the gray Pearl's narrow, long-fingered one.

“You're still a gem. You'll figure something out.”

Gray Pearl jerked her hand out from under Agate's, and looked up, insulted.

“Like what? Either I slowly lose control of myself, fall apart, lose who I am- or the rebel gems hunt me down, and I die. What a great choice.”

“You don't know that,” Agate said, but it just sounded invalidating.

 _“You weren't there,”_ Gray Pearl snapped back at her. She shook the bag. “Do you think these gems were weak? That they weren't all qualified? Capable? It was a massacre. Those rebel gems aren't going to feel _bad_ for me any more than the ones I fought with. If they find me, it won't even take them a millisecond. You're an idiot.”

Scowling, Agate put her hands on her hips. “Just for your information, I don't have to try to console you. Maybe if _you_ were an idiot like _me,_ you wouldn't be _dying_ right now.”

“I didn't _want_ it to be like this! I did everything- I did everything Citrine told me to. Everyone fought for homeworld. _Everyone_ ,” She glared at Agate. “Everyone but _you_.”

When Agate didn't react as she had before, Pearl let out a shuddering breath, sifting her hand through the dirt in front of her. Agate watched as she paused, dug her fingers into the tan soil, and pulled a chunk of glittering green from the ground. Slowly, carefully, she dusted it off on her skirt as best she could, over the rough fractured edges. Agate saw her bring it close to her face, examining it, before breathing on it and continuing to clean it off. It took her some time to realize she was crying as she did.

“It should have been me,” she sobbed, and looked angrily up at her. “It should have been you.”

 

Despite the gray Pearl's despair, and Agate's distaste for the idea, she clung to the bag of fragments as her last chance to woo her way into their superior's good graces. Agate decided to go with her- she certainly didn't want to be stuck on a planet like this, either, and she doubted anyone would have noticed one single little gem slipping away rather than participating in what she saw as a shameful display of gem-on-gem violence. Plenty of gems were lost and missing- would anyone else really notice? (She hoped not.) It was a few hours' walk back toward the field where the homeworld ships had been able to land. The rebel gems had sabotaged some of the likely landing sites, but their pilots were no fools. The deep jungle had served as good cover for the initial colonization vessels, and it worked just fine for deployment in this instance, too. Agate remembered both: the environment, not one that she had really been taught to manage, still bothered her- and the noise of the jungle always set her sharp teeth on edge.

The gray Pearl looked anxious and upset, and Agate couldn't blame her- she could only imagine what her superiors had told her when they had rejected her from the return flight. She was right, though: what was a Pearl without someone to be a Pearl for? If what Gray had said was true, and Citrine really was dead, she had to admit that there really wasn't much of a point in her returning. What would she even _do_ on homeworld? Still, gems were fickle enough- Agate banked on this as they followed the trail of destruction that the soldiers had left. It was this path that Agate had followed when she had turned away from the battlefield and headed in the opposite direction, cutting into the woods and wandering through them for what seemed like an eternity. She had been brought to this location shortly before- prior to that, she had been far further north, dealing with different challenges: she had preferred the burn of the desert and cold of the nights there. It was much more like space, like the barren planets she had been trained to explore and hold down. Every day here she missed the desolation and sharp edges of the flat-topped plateaus- the peace of a nearly empty world. It hadn't taken her long to desert after she landed here. The discontentment had set in almost instantaneously. she had been gone for a long time- she wasn't sure exactly _how_ long, nights and days felt different on a planet that wasn't your own, but long enough to skip out on the battle she had been reassigned to participate in. Before, in the crowd of other gems, it had been almost oppressively loud. Now, they walked in silence: Agate wasn't sure how Pearl was feeling about going back, but she glanced uneasily at her bag, seemingly not trusting it to perform its duty as her last hope for passage home. Her skin, the soft and dreary color of dark winter fog, made her look more sickly than she would have anyway, and Agate wondered if she might not last the trip back. If that was the case, Agate didn't feel like confronting the other gems alone- she could only hope the gray pearl would pull through. She didn't really care for what Homeworld asked of her- but she didn't really care for Earth, either. She looked back at Gray Pearl.

“Are you okay?” she asked, watching her as she carefully scrambled over a large felled tree in the path, its bark notched and flayed where some weapon or skirmish had caught it. Pearl nodded, eyes lingering on the limp body of a long yellowish snake with pretty black designs, crushed beneath the massive weight of the tree.

“I suppose.”

“I mean, you're not going to fall apart before we get there, right?”  
The gray pearl blew her bangs out of her face and glared at Agate as she tied her bag to a strap that ran across her body, where a glinting yellow diamond was posed over the left side of her chest.

“I'm only asking,” Agate whined at the undeserved resentment.  
“I'll be fine.”

Agate shrugged and kept walking, the gray pearl following close behind. When they had arrived, this area had been nearly impassable forest, covered with greenness so thick the darker emeralds and peridots and many other classes of gems had been reduced little diamond accessories bobbing through the darkness. That obviously would not do for an army, and the forest had been cut through by any means necessary; leaving wilted and tattered plants underfoot and towering trees far above the gems' heads. The occasional fearful whoop of a primate in the trees fleeing their presence or a frightened scurrying of feet were the dominant noises through the faint birdsong above them.

“Wait, Agate. Can we stop for a moment?”

Pearl had hurried up to her and tugged on the back of her wrapped crimson shirt, startling her. The gray pearl looked tired, but her gem looked no worse than it was before. She adjusted her shoulder strap through its yellow diamond fastener nervously.

“It's probably not a great idea, right? You said they were leaving.”

Pearl nodded silently, and seemed to resolve herself. Without waiting for another response from Agate, she kept walking, faster than she had before. They progressed quicker this time, and soon saw the light gleaming from the clearing ahead of them where the ships had landed and heard the rushing of the wide brown river that had snaked near the landing site. The riverbank seemed to be much emptier than Agate had hoped- more ships would have meant more spare room that she could convince someone to spare her and the gray pearl. Before her, Pearl stopped suddenly.

“What is it now?” Agate demanded. Pearl was fiddling with the ties on her bag, untying it so she could carry it up to the ships. The humidity and heat had made them both short-tempered as the day had gone on, and the gray pearl's short hair clung to her head as she shook off the water that had accumulated on the bag.

“I'm just worried about these other gems,” Pearl explained. “They're all I have that could convince them.”

The pair of them walked towards the towering oval ships half-buried in the sand, some lifting and ascending into the sky. Pearl walked quickly, then ran, to the closest gem who appeared to have any kind of authority- a tall gem with broad shoulders and broader hips, a diamond cut out from the midsection of her outfit. Her long, light, wavy hair nearly made her blend in against the glint of the sun on the water to Agate, and she followed more hesitantly as Pearl rushed up to her.

“Are you- you're an Amazonite, yes? Can you help me? I have-” she presented her bag- “I have these gem fragments, I'm sure there are gems still alive who are missing them, or you- can you take them back to Homeworld for me? Surely there must be something- you must need power for something-”

Pearl appeared to speak too quickly and emphatically to be followed easily, and even though Agate couldn't see her eyes beneath her curly seafoam bangs, she could see the confusion on her light green face.

“I don't know,” Amazonite said. Her voice was surprisingly quiet, as if she was unsure of what she was saying or where she was. “I'm not sure- maybe?”

“Well, there must be _someone,_ ” Gray Pearl started to sound desperate.

“I was just boarding. I don't know what this is about. I can ask for you, if you want.”  
“That would be good,” Agate cut in, before Pearl could start again. They stood together awkwardly for some time as Amazonite walked away, and returned with a much smaller, harsher-looking gem with a look of distrust on her face.

“Can I help you?” Her voice was harsh and nasal. The Fluorite's blue skin glittered in the light, her hexagonal, purple-tinted glasses sliding down the bridge of her pointed nose before she pushed them up.

“You're that Pearl I spoke to earlier.” It wasn't a question- it was a distasteful recognition, her tone flat and unfriendly.

“Yes, I- I- well. You see, I brought back these gems, and I thought perhaps there may be some others who- might be missing a piece, you know, need healing- with this, maybe you could help them, or use them, or- or something- because I can still be helpful, maybe you could let me leave?”

The gray pearl stammered fearfully in the presence of this supervisor, who seemed to largely ignore the Agate behind her. She offered the bag toward Fluorite, who peered into it with a morbid curiosity before reaching out and closing her hands over the pearl's, shutting the bag, rolling her eyes in a not-so-subtle way as she sighed.

“Listen, Pearl. I told you: we have _no room_ for invalids.”

“But- but the galaxy warp,” Pearl begged weakly.

“Destroyed. Not my fault,” Fluorite informed her. “You can thank the Crystal Gems.”

“You... you won't help anyone?” Gray Pearl's voice cracked.

Fluorite put her hand up, shaking her head, deep blue ponytail swishing behind her. “Stop. I won't? I can't. I truly can't.” When she was sure that Gray had stopped speaking and would not cry, she continued. “Come on. You simply aren't productive. You aren't useful- no offense. You know that. You were Citrine's, yes?”

“Yes.”

Fluorite looked at her, annoyed. “And Citrine's broken, right?”

Gray Pearl was silent for a moment before Fluorite snapped her fingers in her face. “Y-yes!” She answered.

“Then what is it? You already know everything I could tell you. All we have are the interstellar craft you see here,” she waved her purple-gloved arm over the beach, “and you probably wouldn't last the trip anyway. Don't take it personally. We just have to think of what's best for us in the _long run,_ you know? We have to keep the most useful gems around. We could be attacked in space.” She shrugged a little, glancing over Gray Pearl's shoulder at Agate condescendingly. The gray pearl nodded quickly, eyes welling up with tears again.

“You're right. I'm being selfish. I'm sorry.”

Agate was irate. Pushing Pearl aside, she shoved her face into Fluorite's.

“Who _says_ she's not _useful?”_ Agate snarled through her pointed teeth. “She spent days trying to help the gems that got smashed back there, which is more than _you_ gems did! She's a _gem!_ You can't just toss her out like- like _garbage!”_

The fluorite didn't budge, but her expression soured.

“What are you? An Agate, correct?”

“What about it?” Agate poked her in the chest. “And a gem, just like the rest of us!”

Fluorite slapped her hand down. “Okay, _first_ of all, I didn't ask you to talk to me. Second of all, I realize that. As a gem, you should understand the purpose of an _individual_ is to _function_ within a _society_. But...” she trailed off threateningly, looking Agate up and down. “Say a certain individual chooses to take actions directly contrary to the well-being of that society, or,” her green eyes shifted to the Pearl again, “through no fault of their own, loses their ability to function in it? Well then, _logically_ , their membership to that society is no longer extended, and further antisocial behavior would, _obviously_ , be punished.”

She removed her glasses and closed them in the case on her pants with a decisive snap. “I don't think you're stupid, Pearl, so you should understand that. I wish you both the best, honestly.” she said, and turned on her heels, walking into the ship after the Amazonite, the pyramidal banded gem on the base of her neck glinting as her hair swished past it. She left Agate standing with no retort that made sense to her, no way to argue against what she had always believed was the only sensible truth. It hurt her to feel it wielded against her in this way now, but she didn't understand why- perhaps she really _was_ selfish. Or perhaps what she knew to be true was, in fact, wrong. In the end, it didn't matter. She stood dumbly next to Gray, who attempted, silently, to stifle her tears. They watched Fluorite board her craft and slide the door halfway shut as the engines flared to glorious life. From the bank, they watched the gleaming craft laboriously lift itself from the bank and hover over the river. Agate watched Pearl from the corner of her eye, and saw her standing with as much dignity and respect as she could, watching the crafts alight- as if it mattered.

Fluorite leaned from the closing door, and called out to them.

“It's like I said, Agate! There's no room for deserters, either.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, Emil here. I've had to rework the body of this work in light of canon that's being revealed now and in the last Stevenbomb. I hope you enjoy it! Having a specific year set for the first negotiations of the great gem war is actually quite helpful to me, but it also means a lot more work for me to do, historically speaking. I'm a meticulous person, so I'm going to do my best to fix the errors, including adding an important figure in GP's life- Citrine, the gem she served. That will, honestly, alter the story somewhat and alter GP as a character, hopefully for the better. Anyway, here's chapter 1, mark 2, electric boogaloo. It's pretty surreal to think that in a couple months, I'll have been working on this for a year.  
> Hope you enjoy! 
> 
> (Revision date: 1/6/2016, initial publication: 5/27/15)


	2. agate and pearl cross a river

“Well?”

Pearl looked at Agate curiously.

“What do you mean, _well?”_ Gray Pearl asked.

“I mean, do you have a backup plan? Is there another launch site?”

“That _was_ my plan, Agate.” She stared longingly back up into the clear blue sky.

“Maybe they'll come back when they have more room,” she said wistfully, voice quavering slightly. Agate scoffed, reaching up to pull her hat back down to shade her eyes from the sun. Finding it gone, she groaned in irritation. She had liked that hat- it was a real hat, one from her previous post.

“It probably won't be _that_ long,” the gray pearl insisted, trying to force a smile at Agate as she looked around the beach.

“That's not what I'm complaining about. I can't find my hat.”  
“Your hat?”  
_“My hat,”_ Agate repeated angrily. “The one I was wearing before? Wide brim? Straw? Did you see it?”

Pearl rolled her eyes and tied the bag back to her sash.

“Well, Agate, I'm very sorry. I wasn't paying attention to your outfit as we were abandoned on an alien planet.”

Agate clicked her tongue disapprovingly as Pearl stormed away towards the bank of the river, walking carefully between the deep, muddy indents where the starships had been. Water was flowing into them now, creating spirals of murky water and white foam. Cautiously, Pearl leaned over, rinsing the black earth from her hands. “There's no way that the Homeworld would ever take an affront like this lying down. They'll be back. I'm sure of it,” she spoke at the water as she cleaned the dust from her face. “I was probably just being melodramatic. Fluorite said she _wanted_ to help but she _couldn't,_ which means they'll be trying to find a way as soon as they can.” She stood up and looked back over her shoulder. “Right?”  
“Probably not,” Agate scoffed. Pearl looked unamused.

“Oh, what do _you_ know? We'll be fine. Things will be fine.”

“I don't care. I just want two things,” Agate said, and held up her hand to count them off. She tapped her index finger. “One, I want my hat back. And two,” she tapped her middle finger, “I don't want to have my gem smashed to smithereens by some band of marauding rebels.” Before the gray pearl could respond, Agate folded her arms. “But to be honest with you? I don't think they're coming back.”

“Of course they're coming back!” Pearl laughed, a little frenzied, more loudly than was necessary. “And you know what?” She stared at Agate. “Now that I think on it more, I'm _positive_ that other gems must have been left behind too. Plenty of gems could have been lost or trapped in the rubble or even stranded at some outpost without the ability to warp anywhere because of those rebel gems! They could have missed everything! Who knows? Yellow Diamond will care about them, at least- it wasn't their fault, after all- she wouldn't just leave all of them here, and there could be- there could be other diamonds who lost important gems, so- so there's no way that _nobody_ will come back! She wouldn't abandon us-” Pearl's forced smile cracked a bit, and she hesitated. Her voice diminished to a squeak. “Would she?”

Agate had always believed that a gem's first priority ought to be the advancement of other gems- plenty of others believed the same, after all, this was the framework that justified the many conquests of their race. But what Fluorite had said seemed to make sense, too- the good of the many over the good of the few. If advancement was the point, why would they care about the weakest of the litter- the defective gems, the ones that disobeyed?  
“I... I don't know, Pearl,” Agate confessed. “Maybe they will, maybe they won't.”

Pearl put her face in her hands, exhaling anxiously. “I can't stay here. We have to go somewhere,” she begged. “Maybe someone's out there who can get us out of here- at least into space, where the Crystal Gems won't find us- or won't care about chasing us.”

It was a valid concern. The gray pearl's bag was a grim reminder of what could happen- though Agate couldn't understand how such carnage could come from an army of gems that her superiors had assured her was small, weak, and misguided. She ran her fingers through the thick maroon coils of her hair, trying to coax the slight breeze in the air through her locs it as she considered her options.

“Okay, all right.” Agate walked up to her, putting a hand on Pearl's shoulder consolingly. “There's plenty of gem technology here, right? You'll find something to help get out of here. Maybe even something that can help you with the damage to your gem.”

Pearl nodded, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly.

“Maybe.”

“Well,” Agate began, “I guess we should cross the river.”

“Why?”

“The battlefield is behind us, right? I'd be worried about them checking for gems who returned there.”

“Like you did?”  
“Yeah, I guess,” Agate admitted.

“Although I guess it wasn't really _returning,_ since you weren't there in the first place.”

“Hey now,” She objected, “If I hadn't, you'd be here alone, and you'd be way worse.”

Pearl looked dejected. “I suppose you're probably right. How should we do this? It's very broad,” she said nervously, looking out over the pale, murky water.

“We'll be fine. We're gems! What's some Earth stream to us, right?” Agate put her hand to her gem, and with a fuchsia flash of light, pulled a sabre with a jagged, sharp edge. Determined, she proclaimed: “We'll make a raft!”

Together, the two of them walked back to where they had come out of the woods. Between the two of them, the process was fairly easy- Pearl retrieved logs that Agate smoothed and cut, standing waist-deep in the water. As they worked, the sun lowered from just above them to gleaming low over the trees on the other side of the river. Their efforts had yielded something crude, but workable- Agate cut notches into their largest logs, fitting their smaller ones across to form something like an acceptable surface. Together, they built a three-layer boat that was uglier than anything either one of them had witnessed on the Homeworld, about eight feet long and four feet wide. Neither one of them wanted to question its functionality- it had taken them the rest of the day to put it together, and the river was too broad and murky to simply try to swim across. Neither one of them wanted to try going further up or down the river and risk running into a possible hostile gem. With the aid of some very crude paddles cut from a wide fallen tree by Agate, the two of them boarded their craft and set sail.

Everything seemed fine at first- Pearl tied her bag further up, above her diamond insignia, and the two of them picked a point that looked fairly smooth- they could see smooth rocks through the surface at the other side, so it couldn't be that bad, she reasoned. They could easily see the other side, and with some coaxing paddling, the two of them began to move in a direction that was approximately correct. Agate sat in front and the gray pearl sat behind, nervously looking around as they set sail.

“If things get bad, we can probably just swim through,” Agate suggested hopefully.

Rivers that appear not very far across often seem to get wider once one tries to cross them, and this was the case for the two gems, neither one of which were really as good at sailing the craft as they were at engineering it. The river seemed swifter than they had expected, though, and paddling soon became difficult against the current- they seemed to be swept downstream rather than across no matter how they tried. Stubbornly, they proceeded, moving at an angle to the pale, murky water, which only seemed to grow swifter. Agate found herself concerned not only for herself, but for Pearl as well, who seemed to grow more and more anxious as they proceeded. As time went on, though, they were close enough to the other side to give Agate confidence, and she worked with renewed vigor.

“It seems fast,” Gray Pearl called, over the sound of the river.

“I'm sure it's-” Agate began dismissively, but her words were cut short as the raft collided with a large stone sticking from the side of the water. The raft jolted dangerously, but the two stayed steady until it began to turn, colliding with another and tossing the two of them into the water. Agate found herself tossed effortlessly through the water- it was far more powerful than she had anticipated, and she clutched the paddle as hard as she could, hoping it would pull her to the surface where she could make her way to land. It didn't, but it did something just as good: lodged itself between two protruding brown stones, and jerked her body out like a flag in the wind.

With a great heave, she pulled herself forward against the current, lifting her head above the water that tore at her, foaming up white around her. Slowly, she made her way to the rock closer to the opposite shore, which was tantalizingly close- she climbed slowly upon it and held it tight with her legs. Before her, only five or six feet away and a touch further from the shore, was Pearl, clinging to her rock with a wide-eyed look of distress out towards a cluster of rocks nearby.

“Pearl! Are you all right?”

Her head whipped around, sending droplets of water flying in the low light.

“Y-yes, I'm- no, I'm- my bag-” she turned back where she had been looking before, and squinting, Agate could just make out the yellow diamond fastener on the strap that Pearl had been wearing. As for her bag of fragments, it floated half above the water, tugging the strap against the low stone.

 _“Pearl!”_ Agate reached out from her stone, stretching her arm toward her. She stared back, mouth half-open, her purple eyes wide.

“Come on! Leave it behind!” Agate insisted, jerking her head to indicate the shore. Pearl looked at her proffered hand, and back at the bag, which slid from the spot where it was wedged between the rocks. With one last, piteous look at Agate, she leapt back into the water. Agate screamed for her, scrambling over the rock, searching for any glimpse of her companion. Panicking, she stared over the murky water, finding nothing- for all she knew, Pearl was caught in the rocks, or she'd already had her gem smashed to pieces on one. In a moment of fear and desperation, not wanting to be left alone, she jumped in after her.

Agate was not a weak swimmer, but being tossed by the water made it too difficult to even know which way she was supposed to be going, and she regretted her decision almost immediately. While she, unlike a human, had no problems holding her breath against the battering water, she still couldn't see through the water but for the occasional glimpse of light in the surface. In retrospect, she knew that she would have probably been better served by rushing to shore and following the river, but it was too late for that now, wasn't it? It seemed like sour grapes at this point. Then, from her side, she heard a splash. Ropes tangled around her and jerked her away, in a direction she could not discern- whether they were dragging her towards a tangled inescapable doom or salvation, she didn't know. She wound her hands around the cotton ropes and hoped as hard as she could that it was the latter. When the gems broke the surface, she stared up at the faces of the strange bipeds she had seen in the forest. Their skin was dark, and their hair was black, and there were looks of terror on their faces as they dropped the nets they had cast over the struggling gems and stepped backward, speaking a language that Agate did not understand. Why had they intervened? Weren't they just Earth animals, same as any other? What did they want? Why would they do this?

Lying on her front in the mud, she turned her head to see gourds skimming the water a few feet away as a pair of humans pulled in the other net, heaving the gray pearl onto the shore, her one arm dangling from a tear in the net, the drawstrings of her bag wrapped around her wrist. She watched a small human approach Pearl, narrow stick of some kind grasped in their hand- a weapon? Agate steeled herself, only to see one of the large humans sweep the small one into their arms and carry him quickly into the forest. The looks on their face were still fearful, but cautiously curious- a few said things Agate thought may have been directed to her, but all she could do was stare back silently. The rest of the humans quickly retreated as she regained her strength and began to move- Agate didn't care. They were Gems- more powerful, smarter, _better_. They _should_ be afraid. Searching for the end of the net, Agate watched Pearl- she looked, at the very least, to be still alive.

Soaked and trembling, Agate crawled from the net, with Pearl close behind doing the same. Blearily, she rolled onto her back, taking a few shuddering breaths as she imagined what could have happened had her physical form become too damaged to continue- she could have totally lost track of where she managed to regenerate, or worse, she could have been smashed against rocks or eaten by some animal. As these thoughts raced around her mind, she sat up angrily, staring at Pearl, who was curled on the shore, clutching her bag.

“What were you _thinking?_ Just _drop_ the damn thing! You almost got killed! You almost got _me_ killed!”

Pearl opened her eyes and carefully began to sat up, her thin arms shaking as she pushed herself upward. She said nothing, apparently still composing herself. At her impassivity and silence, Agate grew even angrier.

“What, you don't have anything to say for yourself? You've got some nerve!” she spat as she stood up and stormed toward Pearl. “I don't even know why I bother! You think you can do something about this? What good is a bunch of broken gems anyway?” She grabbed the bag and tore it from Pearl's grasp, shaking it angrily. Pearl looked terrified.  
“Agate, don't! Stop it!”  
“I should throw this thing in the river! It's not like we can do anything for them anyway!”  
“Please, leave it alone!” Pearl's voice cracked as she struggled to keep herself calm. “Please, Agate.”

“Oh, sure! Cry about it!” Agate stood up, the red orange skin on her knuckles a pale pastel from the force of her grasp. She looked down at Pearl with disgust. “Why should I care? You won't even put your own life ahead of your stupid bag! I'm sick of this thing!”

Agate drew back her arm arm, and slammed it to the ground in front of Pearl. The drawstrings loosened and the sparkling fragments spilled onto the riverbank in front of the soaking wet gem, who grabbed them as quickly as she could, shoving them back inside in handfuls. The desperation on her face only repulsed Agate further, and she turned away, storming up the grassy hill, her throat burning. She didn't look behind her, and didn't care whether Pearl followed her or not.

This jungle was very different than the one that the army had gone through. It was dark and thick, and it was only by merit of the thickness of the trees' mossy roots that there was any non-plant covered ground to move through at all. As Agate stormed through the tall ferns, shoving thick cords of ivy out of her way, she ignored the scrambling around her and the whooping of animals. As she walked, she wanted to hope that the gray pearl had gone a different direction- decided that enough was enough, and perhaps walked downstream instead of following her, but she couldn't, in her heart, really hope for that. The little gray pearl was the only friend she had and the only gem she knew, and the thought of possibly eternal separation, and never knowing her friend's fate, only upset her further.

Suddenly, a flash of bright green caught her vision. She looked up, holding her breath- through the plants, she could see just a hint of it- brilliant green, not so unlike a gem, a figure she couldn't discern. A piercing cry echoed through the woods. She froze, a sudden jolt of hope and fear shooting through her.

“Hello?” she called, and her voice sounded thin and desperate.

 _“Hello!”_ The voice was pained, sharp and strange, but _definitely_ what she had said.

Agate dashed forward. It _had_ to be another gem! No one else could speak to her! She shoved through the plants, throwing the leaves aside, and- there was the brilliant green, on the heaving chest of a bird with its shining, hooked black beak opening and closing. Its black tongue strained forward as it stared at her. Its face was a vivid, sodalite blue, with a single patch of pretty ruby red. Its wings were spread and strained to either side, the same brilliant peridot green, its two-toed feet clawed and grasping. Around its body, huge white teeth disappeared into its feathers, black lips on a brilliant gold animal whose glittering, clear, yellow eyes were fixed unmercifully on Agate, searching her quickly, before seemingly coming to a decision- that she wasn't worthy of intervention. A low series of grunts emerged around the crying bird as the black-spotted creature took a slight, hesitant step backward, broad tail swishing. Agate could not move.  
_“Hello!”_ The bird screamed again, and its voice sounded even more like Agate's than the first time it had called to her, its feet tensing weakly in the air as the animal gripped it tighter. In one fluid motion, it turned tail and fleeing into the approaching darkness, gone as quickly as she had seen it. She exhaled, realizing she had holding her breath all that time. It had felt like ages, but it had to have been only seconds. Standing there, alone again, the silence of the forest bore down on her as hard as the water had. She closed her eyes, leaning back against the broad, smooth brown trunk of the nearest tree. She swallowed, trying to push through the pressure in her throat as she stared at the delicate drops of blood on the leaves where the bird had been.

Agate felt betrayed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \--  
> Hello readers!! It's me, Emil again! I hope you enjoyed this latest installment- I'm hoping to add the next tomorrow or the next day, but I'm not making any solid promises. :3c  
> Not to sound too corny, but- if you look hard, you might be able to figure out exactly where Pearl and Agate are! The snake, the bird, and (obviously) the jaguar are all real animals, and are all in their native habitat zone! In fact, the humans that they encounter were a real people, too! (though the information about them is sparse, and I have to make do with what info there is out there on the Internets in English. :P ) I never expected anyone to like the story really, so it's very encouraging to see that almost 40 people have clicked on it! (Even if they didn't read it, I appreciate the thought, LOL. ) I'm considering, if I find a chance, doing a few small black/white illustrations for each chapter... we'll see :0! 
> 
> As always, inbox me with any questions or comments or anything at all. Hope you like it! Have a happy day B^)
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **EDIT: AS OF 1/10/2016 this chapter has been updated to reflect canon better. I also replaced the word "dreadlocks" with "locs" because I recently learned it has a pseudoracist origin. TMYK! Because I'm pumped about it, I guess it's pretty obvious that Brief History is set in northeast South America (I was TOO FUCKING HYPED when "Friend Ship" aired.) I've put this through a good round of edits- let me know what you think!**


	3. of battleships and bipeds

Agate breathed slowly, staring into the green around her, rubbing the palm of her hands over her eyes. There was no point in behaving like some kind of weak little animal now. She didn't know why this was hitting her so hard- it had only been one day since she had really spent any time with the pearl. When she had split off from the army before, she had felt no regret. No one had noticed. She had been relieved then. Perhaps the idea that the other gems were still there, on the same side (even if she probably wouldn't be regarded kindly by them) had been somehow consoling. Now, she had the nagging feeling that she was unlikely to actually find any other gems in any semblance of normalcy. She supposed it was possible- aside from the rebel gems, however many there were and wherever they were, there had to be other loyal homeworld gems stranded just like she was, just like Gray Pearl had said, but whether she found them or not, she didn't want to do it alone- ashamed of herself, Agate turned around and began to walk back the way she came. She had only just begun the walk when she became aware of footsteps other than her own, and she stopped to listen.

  
“Gray Pearl?” She called.  
  
“Yes!” Came the muffled reply. “It's me!”  
  
Agate didn't wait for any further confirmation. Hurrying through the trees, she found Pearl, still damp and unkempt from the river, carrying her bag of fragments in the crook of her arm. Pearl looked immediately relieved and then, as she stopped in her tracks, determined.  
  
“Agate,” she said, breathless: “I want an apology.”  
  
“Apology?” Agate was shocked. Why couldn't they just be happy that they didn't have to go through the forest alone, in the dark?  
  
“Yes. I think you were unfair. I know you don't understand-”  
  
“You're damn right I don't.”  
  
“I know you don't understand, but this is important to me!” Pearl insisted. “They may just be some useless fragments to you, but most of them- I saw this happen to them- I was there! I fought alongside these gems! The only reason I survived is because someone threw my gem into the woods after-” she touched her black choker. “After my form was too damaged to continue.”  
  
“That happens to plenty of gems,” Agate said defensively. “You can't get us killed over this.” Then, trying to appeal to her sense of duty: “Then no one would keep them safe.”  
  
Pearl looked hurt. “You really don't understand.”  
  
Agate grew more defensive. “Of course I do!”  
  
“No, Agate, you don't! First of all, you just said you didn't. Second, I owe them, and you do too. Maybe you don't feel like it-” she said, seeing Agate get ready to retort, “but you do. We fought for days. We fought hard enough that even when we lost, they couldn't come looking for gems like you, who didn't. There was no time left.” Her voice softened. “I'm sorry that I jumped back in the river, Agate. I wasn't trying to put anyone in danger, I just- I didn't want to lose them. I wasn't thinking clearly.”  
  
Agate considered this cautiously, making a skeptical face, nodding slightly.  
“All right, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gone off on you.”  
  
Gray Pearl nodded and gave her a hesitant smile. “I can accept that. Thank you.”

  
Agate decided not to press the issue any further. The rainforest around them was growing darker by the minute, and the other gem's company was a consolation in a place that was increasingly eerie and alien.  
  
“We should find somewhere with a little more space- and light,” Agate suggested. Pearl nodded, and the two of them headed into the darkness in the little light that was left. They stuck close together, and Agate, in hushed tones, told the gray pearl about the animal she had seen killing the bird before she had turned around and its haunting yellow eyes. The conversation helped, somewhat, to keep the noises of the forest at night from seeming too frightening.  
  
“What about those other creatures- the ones that pulled us to shore?” Pearl asked her. “What do you think about them?”  
  
“Do you really think they were trying to save us?” Agate wondered. “Maybe they were trying to catch us so they could try to eat us or something, and they just got scared.”  
  
“I don't think so. Or at least, I don't think they wanted to eat us.” From behind her, Agate heard her go quiet for a short while, mulling over the events of the day.  
  
“I think they were trying to help. Maybe they only saw us through the water and thought we were one of them.”  
  
Agate laughed. “Are you kidding me? We don't look anything like them!”  
  
“Maybe, but we're more similar than most of the other animals around here. With the blur of the water, I could see how they could make that mistake.”  
  
“I guess that's true.”

  
The two of them made their way back to the shoreline, and they walked along the river, mostly in silence. As the night went on, and it felt like they were doing something constructive, Agate began to feel a little better about everything. Even Pearl's spirits seemed to lift some, and as she searched for possible topics for conversation that didn't run along the lines of 'we are probably never going home' and 'it is probably terrible here', Agate mentioned how she had remembered the gray pearl somewhat from some time ago, and awkwardly, she filled in some of the details of their passing conversations- never much that was important, since they were both two very different gems and their work hadn't much overlapped. However, there was one conversation in particular that stuck out to Pearl.  
  
“We spoke on the ship,” she said.  
  
Agate was surprised. “We did? I didn't remember.”  
  
Gray Pearl nodded. “Well, we truly did. Everyone was upset- it was just before we landed. You were especially upset, if I recall correctly, so I remembered. You just looked so... bitter.”

Agate didn't respond, but she _did_ remember. The crowded quarters of the dropship she had been deployed on had been prime territorial grounds, and the snarling orders of the more militaristic gems, with their unspoken rule that they were not to be questioned, had begun to wear on her nerves. There were too many chefs in the kitchen, so to speak, especially because much of the army was picked up from different outposts with different rapports of power. It was like throwing a bunch of stray dogs who had never met together in a cage, and there were frequent scraps and arguments among the gems that felt they had a right to authority and power, often called off by the gems that actually had a right to authority and power. The flight had seemed unending and incredibly monotonous compared to the free-flying joy of the warp pads, and the close quarters and scattered dissatisfied murmurs only made the windowless hell more oppressive. Every moment, she missed the endless expanse of the desert where she had been stationed, and whatever she did- searching over topographic maps, comparing location data of recent correspondence with rebel gems, guessing at their locations, imaging rivers and forests and dangerously shifting tides, shoulder-to-shoulder with other gems, standing around while the other gems planned and argued with one another and trying to persuade their supervisors where the best routes of approach would be- her mind wandered. Her heart wasn't in it. Perhaps the higher-ranking gems, in their seemingly unending tirades about loyalty to homeworld and the diamond authority, had been trying to drum up some motivation, but for Agate, it did the opposite: she resented their demands and sulked in the hallways, sitting off to the side, avoiding it as much as she could. Every sharp shoulder, every towering silhouette, sent her around the nearest corner unless absolutely compelled to participate in some way. Even the most reasonable order frustrated her and put bile in her throat, and she grew more and more depressed. Agate, of course, wasn't alone in this, but she didn't have the energy to notice that it was occurring for anyone else, and thus felt even more alone.

  
“You tripped over my feet, didn't you?” She elbowed Pearl, trying to lighten the mood. Gray Pearl scoffed.  
  
“It may be more accurate to say that you tripped me.”  
  
Agate shrugged and smiled. The gray pearl may have tripped over her, but it had been kind of lucky. There were plenty of other gems who wouldn't have had the patience for that kind of inconvenience. Now that she thought back over the incident, Gray Pearl had been the only gem to tell her anything that consoled her even slightly- she had sat with her for just a few minutes, and told her, in hushed tones, that she didn't enjoy being there either. The gray pearl had spoken to her about how frustrating it was that no one seemed to take her- or pearls in general- seriously, no one seemed to care if they didn't understand a plan or take the time to justify the tactical choices that they did choose to share. “It's not my business, I guess,” she'd said, “but if I'm expected to be there, I'd like to know what I'm getting into.” Gray Pearl had quickly corrected that of course, she was wholly devoted to Citrine, (“and Homeworld, of course!”) but Citrine, as Pearl now described, was something of a social brutalist.

  
“She didn't like- you know, superfluous things.” Gray Pearl tugged her shirt, watching the darkness as she spoke as Agate trailed in a curving line around her general line of progression. “And of course, one could make the argument that I- well, that my job is- superfluous. As a pearl, I would have been happy just attending her, but that wasn't enough- I had to be useful, and if I was useful, she didn't want to be without me. I guess I did a good enough job.” she sighed. “She told me she wasn't going to just drop me somewhere and head to the battlefield, but she wouldn't have me being a burden, either. Deep down, though, I think she really wanted me to be safe, although according to her, she didn't want to be embarrassed by me.”

  
“Wow,” Agate said. “She sounds like a jerk.”  
  
Gray Pearl scowled at her.  
  
“It isn't like that. Besides, if she hadn't brought me, you never would have met me on that ship.”

  
Their conversation on the dropship had reminded Agate that beyond the bravado and cold determination, the sense of resigned duty that they were going to go do what they had to go do, there were gems who felt like she did. She had told Pearl that her feelings were conflicted- she was fine with doing what she could to aid in gem expeditions and conquests, but this was neither. Allying herself with her people was important to her, but no matter how much she reminded herself and repeated that the rebel gems were traitors, dangerous disruptors of a social order that protected them all and put the righteous in charge, it was hard to look past the fact that they were still gems. She had asked the gray pearl not to tell anyone, and she had promised that she wouldn't. Agate, in turn, promised to keep Pearl's venting off the records of her superiors. Agate had fully expected not to have any further contact with her, and they had gone their separate ways until they had met back at the battlefield.  
“Well, anyway, I'm glad you came back,” said Agate. Pearl smiled at the ground.

  
They walked through the night, eventually turning from the coast and moving slowly but steadily through the rainforest, their conversations interspersed with occasional silences as one noise or another alarmed one or both of them. When the sun finally began to rise they were both growing weary of their trek, so when a hint of a strange, melodic sound sang through the trees, Agate took the opportunity to pursue the new thing.

  
“What is that?” Gray Pearl wondered aloud.  
  
“I don't know. It sounds like music. Let's check it out.”  
  
“You don't think it's dangerous, do you?”  
  
“Not really. But either way, we haven't got any other leads, do we?”  
  
“I suppose not,” Pearl admitted, and the two of them headed in the direction of the sound.

  
They came to the edge of a clear, dark, shallow stream that looked totally different than the turbulent, murky thing they had crossed the previous day. With the sun just risen, they stepped across and into a vividly green field. A small group of humans sat in the clearing, talking among themselves and laughing. There were a few very young, small humans, a few old ones, and a few that were young adults- no more than ten or twenty in all, going about their strange human business without much worry apart from the behavior of their peers. From her place in the forest, the gems saw that the sound they had heard had come from a pale white flute in the hands of a human woman playing to a small group of others as they worked a long, light net with gourds tied to it stretched across their knees, speaking quietly among themselves. One or two small buildings, which still looked new and raw, were placed doorway-forward in the clearing. Perhaps this was part of the reason the humans didn't see them immediately- they were partially occluded by the edge of one of the small huts.

“I wonder if those are the creatures that pulled us out of the river,” Agate whispered. Pearl wasn't especially enthused by the thought, and turned back down the bank towards the creek. Agate looked over her shoulder as Pearl followed it upstream a short distance.  
  
“Where are you going?”  
  
“I'm going to look after the fragments while you're spying on those humans,” Gray Pearl informed her, a little bit of judgment into the words _spying_ and _humans_. She put her bag down next to her, sifting through for the ones that had gotten muddy when Agate had thrown it on the ground. Agate could accept this- if cleaning them off would make Pearl happy, then whatever, more power to her. The behavior of strange bipeds, much like that of the animals on the battlefield, held her attention much more easily. For the most part, the humans all wore the same type of thing- rough, brownish-white fabric in skirts or wraps, some with shells or other adornments Agate didn't recognize. She watched the human children running around in and out of the woods, and almost didn't notice when one, a small girl, managed to loop around Pearl's side without them noticing. Agate glanced over to see the tiny human girl standing behind Pearl, who was crouched over the river with the bag at her side, had been so consumed in her work that she hadn't noticed her walk up behind her and pluck a glittering violet shard as big as her hand from the bag. Agate leapt from her spot and cried out to her, and Gray Pearl turned, alarmed, to see the intruder. She stashed the fragment she was washing and picked up the bag suddenly, frightening the small girl and the rest of the human group, who rushed over, halting suddenly and as they saw Pearl towering over the child, who looked very much intimidated. Pearl, angry at first, paused when she saw the fear on the girl's face. The humans exchanged nervous looks, and one man called to the girl firmly. She didn't move.

  
Agate saw Pearl bend down, point to the shard in the girl's hand, and then to her own gem, tapping the chip. She couldn't hear what Pearl was saying, but she supposed it didn't matter- it wasn't like the child would understand anyway. She paused about five feet away, nervously watching the situation. She didn't want to have to kill a bunch of dumb humans, especially not if those same dumb humans had saved her life before.

The girl holding the shard looked from her hands up to Pearl, and she gasped, speaking to her in a surprised, worried tone, and reached up, patting Pearl's gem with her hand, so small that it didn't even span the its width. Gray Pearl nodded regretfully, and the little girl frowned, grabbing Pearl's hand and returning the fragment to her, curling her fingers back over it and patting her hand before turning back and wandering back to her father, who had watched, tense, through the whole interaction. As she galloped back to him, he picked her up and eyed the gems suspiciously, carrying her back to their small group. It took a few minutes, but even though they were now aware of the gems' presence, the humans uneasily returned to their tasks, though they now positioned themselves so that the gems, who sat in the grass on the other side of the clearing, were in their sight.

  
“Lucky thing she gave that back, right?” Agate said to Pearl, who nodded shortly. “You handled that like a real bleeding heart, you know?”

  
Rolling her eyes, Pearl folded her legs. “That tiny thing wasn't any kind of threat to me. There was no reason to make a scene.” She looked over at the human encampment. “They don't know any better. They're just animals, after all.”

  
They sat together, watching the small group at their crafts, before they became aware of a minor disagreement among a few of the young adults. A young woman, about Agate's height, kept starting to walk over and returning to her friends after they spoke urgently to her. Agate watched it unfold curiously as each time, the strange woman seemed more and more intent to approach the gems. Eventually, she strode up to them, a look of faux confidence on her face. The human gestured toward herself. “Datiao,” she said loudly and slowly to the gems. Pearl turned.  
  
“Is that what you are?” She asked, and when the woman looked confused, she repeated the word. “Datiao?” She asked, pointing at her. The woman seemed disgruntled and amused by this, which confused Pearl further.  
  
“Wu'a,” she laughed nervously, and spoke a sentence that was too fast and fluid for Pearl or Agate to pick anything out of it.  
  
“I think she wants a better name,” Agate whispered to Pearl, arms crossed. “What do we call her?”  
  
“I don't know! She sort of looks like an Axinite, maybe, if they were... you know, not a gem.”  
  
Agate decided this was good enough. “Axinite?” She slowly suggested, pointing at her, and the woman looked startled. She looked to her friend, unsure, before touching her chest. She repeated the word, stumbling over the x sound as it slurred into a sh in her unfamiliar language. Still, she seemed kind of flattered, as well as confused, and as her friends approached, she cleared her throat, and began to try to communicate in the same slow, loud way with grand gestures, doing her best to convey a story.

As she spoke she raised her arms in upward horizontally and then up into a towerlike structure, then crouching down and creeping her fingers through the grass to where she had created her imaginary structure. She looked back and forth from her gestures to the gems as if they were children, a very serious look on her face, waiting for understanding. When her fingers reached the door of the building, she yelled loudly, and ran her fingers back the way they had came. She paused, smiling at the gems anxiously before nodding towards them and illustrating the structure again.

  
“How strange. I wonder what she means,” Pearl said, kneeling down into the grass with the young woman. “Axinite, what is- this?” She asked, miming the movement of her hands. She seemed to grow excited, nodding, pointing from Gray Pearl to her imaginary building and, this time, walking two sets of fingers to the building, whereupon she screamed again- but this time, kept her fingers walking. When her fingers returned this time, they walked more leisurely, and the woman gestured to herself and her friends, speaking excitedly.  
  
“I think there's something out there, Agate.”  
  
“I'm sure there's lots of stuff out there,” Agate replied, skeptically.  
  
“She wants us to go see it- it could be dangerous for them,” she said, looking up. “What do you think?”  
  
“Then it could be dangerous for us, too!” Agate objected, putting her hands on her hips stubbornly. “What if these humans are leading us into some trap?”  
  
“I don't think she'd do that! We should at least look- maybe it's something the other gems left, or maybe even other gems!”

Agate opened her mouth, wanting to suggest that maybe it was crystal gems, but she gave up. There was no point in raining on Gray Pearl's parade- they didn't have a lot of options, and it seemed smart enough to follow up on each one they found. The suggestion that possible allies could be very close by was both tempting and likely enough to convince Agate it was worth the investigation, but she wasn't entirely satisfied.

  
“Okay,” said Agate, and nodded at the woman, who smiled even more brightly until Agate pointed at herself, Gray Pearl, and lastly the woman herself. The smile dropped off her face. She gestured off into the forest in a different direction, but Agate insisted, pointing at the three of them again.  
“Either we all go, or we're not going,” she demanded.  
  
“Agate, don't you think you're overreacting? We'll be fine on our own.” Pearl laughed anxiously, turned to the young woman, and nodded assuredly. “Don't worry. We'll find your... strange screaming thing.”  
  
Before Agate could react, the girl got to her feet, brushing the front of her cotton skirt, and grabbed them both by the hands, speaking very seriously. Pearl stood up, and shot a dirty look at Agate.  
“I hope she doesn't get hurt because of this,” she scolded. Shortly thereafter, however, the young woman turned and ran into one of the huts, and Agate looked over at Pearl with a smug grin, as if she had known the woman would rather not go at all than go with them. She was surprised when she ran back out with a piece of folded cloth in her hands, rushing back up to Gray Pearl and holding it out.  
  
“What is this?” Pearl asked in surprise, picking at it carefully. The girl offered it more emphatically as she drew her hand back momentarily, and Pearl picked it up. As she turned it, it unfolded into a long banner of fabric. As she turned it to face her, Pearl gasped.  
  
“Agate, it's my diamond! My yellow diamond!” She said excitedly- and it was, sewn onto the cotton in a way that indicated that while perhaps the people had kind of missed the point of the fastener, they knew approximately what it should look like. The metal diamond was badly scuffed and slightly dented, but unmistakably Pearl's- she clutched it to her chest and stared, at the human, starstruck. Agate watched and, as she did so, found herself feeling a little jealous- after all, it was atypical to carry around physical items, and they'd both done it  _and_ lost those items, but lucky Pearl got hers back. Still, she shook it off. It didn't matter, she told herself. She could always make another hat.

  
“You _were_ the ones that saved us! Thank you so much,” she smiled, and then stared pleadingly at Agate. “We _have_ to go now. We _owe_ them,” she emphasized as she slid the cotton strap over her shoulder, and tied her bag to it.  
“What?” Agate cried, but she had little ground to stand on as the woman grabbed their hands and ushered them forward, leading the gems through the clearing as her friends watched in stunned silence. As they began to walk, Agate could see the slightest hint of a trail- not the ragged, violent gash that the army had left, but something more subtle and gradual. It was clear that the young woman had come this way through the forest many times, and this put Agate's mind somewhat at ease- surely the rebel gems weren't familiar enough with the humans to walk with them so regularly. She stopped suddenly short in front of them in front of a group of trees that were unusually large, even for the forest. She looked from them to the gleaming building meaningfully. She said something to them in a hushed and urgent voice, patting them in a brief, consoling gesture before urging them forward. Around the tree in the center was a gleaming green structure made of intersecting circular buildings of green stone, only a story or two high depending where you looked, but highly unusual for what they had seen from the humans.

It was clearly not constructed by them, and with only a cursory glance at it, a pang of homesickness shot through Agate- it was a gem structure.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!
> 
> This chapter got WAY too long! I had to break it up. Originally, this chapter was 'a gem is lost and found'- that one's now Chapter 4, and will be up later! B^)
> 
> i very much enjoy writing about early humans- the ones that Agate and Gray Pearl interact with here are meant to be Norte Chico, who existed in South America (at their earliest) from about twelve thousand years ago to (at the latest) three thousand. They're really a very cool civilization for many reasons that are too numerous to discuss here, but there's a lot of cool information about them that I can't convey with the language barrier in the story (and because this is really prior to the real rise of their cities) but there you go, there's some trivia. (Here's some more: http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Norte_Chico_civilization ) I would HIGHLY encourage you to read about the Norte Chico!! 
> 
> But, unfortunately, since the Norte Chico had no written language, there was no way I could give the people in the story verbal dialogue (which I wanted to do to kind of illustrate the gems' mindsets here) without a little bit of artistic license. The words that "Axinite" use for Agate and Gray Pearl are actually Taino words, a conceivably close geographic language to what the Norte Chico would have used. Because the Taino are a very old people who (I believe) have SOME overlapping chronological timeline. There may be a better language choice, but I'm not an anthropologist lol (THOUGH If you find one or if you're a speaker of a similar language- let me know! as is I may just move to having sections where you can understand the humans, but not the gems or the reverse. It's difficult to communicate between two people without a common language normally, but it's a real pain to then communicate that to a reader, too :P) Obviously I have to kind of fudge body language, etc. to make it comprehensible. (Like, let's just pretend nods mean yes and head shakes mean no and pointing isn't unforgivably rude, etc.) 
> 
> Anyway, as far as the timeline: to further put things in perspective, Egypt's pyramids will be built in about two or three thousand years, and the American revolution will occur 4.7 thousand years after that- and then the present day's only about half a thousand years past that! Human history is really very small when you think about it! Science is VERY cool and fun! (I'VE BEEN WORKING ON THIS SINCE 10am!!!!!!!! B^)))))))) 
> 
> \- Emil
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> **edit as of 1/10/2016: i was SO LUCKY with the timeline here. This chapter was edited significantly, hopefully for the better. With the canon timeline of "the answer," I'm still pretty well conceivably within my limits so I can still beg people to care about indigenous south american folks. As a quick non-SU related sideline: I was playing fucking Civ on the xbox and they have some dude named "norte chico" as a villainous barbarian! there's not even any evidence that they waged war at all. SMFH! racist as hell!**


	4. a gem is lost and found

 

“It looks like a bunker of some kind,” Pearl said wonderingly.

Agate nodded, glancing at Pearl, who walked, dreamlike, towards it. Agate watched her run her hand along the structure gently, staring up at its thin, eyelike windows. The area was eerily quiet- no screaming, like the human had said- Agate couldn't even hear any birds. She looked back to see the girl crouching at the edge of the circle of trees, watching them closely. It made her nervous, but she tried not to show it.

“Agate, the door is over here! It's been broken in,” she heard Pearl yell, and she followed to where the entrance was. It was no simple mistake- Agate could see the marks of a blasting impact on the broken door at a height about a foot taller than her head. Something- some _one_ , no doubt- had struck the door so as to break it inward, leaving chunks of dark gray stone strewn around a dark, circular room. Hopefully, she looked over at the pearl.

“Looks like someone broke in. Maybe they left something.”

Pearl nodded, following her carefully as they stepped over the rubble. It was very plain, and very dim- arches connected the seemingly randomly placed rooms, but the interior of each was easily visible and would have been difficult to sneak up on them from. They began to search together for any gem technology that could have been left behind- even something to communicate or signal with would have been a blessing, but the rooms seemed strangely empty except for signs of recent struggle.

“This seems way smaller once you're inside it,” Agate called to Pearl as she looked for any sign of a warp. She found several doors in the smaller rooms' walls, but all of them seemed to lead to nowhere- strange, narrow closets that were all, just as strangely, empty.

“I thought that too. It's very unusual....” Pearl's voice trailed off before Agate heard a disapproving groan. “Agate, look at this!”

Agate hastened into the chamber where she had heard the gray pearl's voice. Once she entered, she was surprised- it seemed the room they had entered was the back entrance, yet this one's doors were intact, and closed- they gleamed occasionally with a subtle silver sheen, the strange, myriad windows casting a strange, eerie glow on a pennant that was driven deep into a door in the wall.

“I don't think there's anything here. It's been cleared out,” Pearl said softly, staring up at the tattered flag driven into the tiny door. It was pink, long thorned lines crossing from one corner to the other. “And I can wager this was who did it,” she said disgustedly, pointing up at the flag. “What gall! They didn't even care enough to properly mount their flag. Shows how much she cares for gemkind!”

“Pearl, it doesn't matter. There's nobody here.”

“I'm _still_ taking this down.” Agate watched as the gray Pearl grabbed one edge and tore the flag off its pole, throwing it angrily to the ground. “Not _every_ gem has to just _accept_ what they did,” she growled, reaching for the pole. As she tried to pull it out, she met with some resistance. She pulled harder, and it pulled downward before springing back into place. She clucked disapprovingly.  
“What is it stuck on? Agate, lend me a hand,” she called, and this time, they grabbed the pole, pulling until it slid free from the door and, along with the pair of them, clattered to the ground. Grumbling, Agate sat up and took a closer look at the flagpole.

“Look at this,” she called, and Pearl crawled over. Agate reached to the end that had been lodged in the door- it wasn't a flagpole at all, but a spear- seemingly one that had been repurposed after the fact. Agate touched the pointed end, and her fingers came away wet.

“What is _that?”_ Pearl asked incredulously as Agate lifted her hand into the light to look at the pale substance on her hand. She narrowed her eyes.

“I'm not sure,” she said quietly. “but I have a suspicion.”

From behind the door, they heard a thud. The gems looked up, startled, and stood slowly, backing away from the flag and the spear. Nearly immediately, the door fell open as well, and a small, silver figure, skin mottled with black, tumbled out after them.

It was a short, curveless gem with extremely short hair. Her hands were covered in her light tan blood, and it smeared across the tile floor as she pushed herself up, staring at the other two gems fearfully. Agate saw a large cut on her cheek where it seemed the spear had grazed her. Pearl gasped.

“Are you all right?” Agate asked, but the gem didn't answer. Her eyes- bright, one blue, one brown- burned with undirected rage, and she reached to the back of her left hand, where a shiny black oval gem spat threads of orange fire as she pulled her weapon from it. With a furious roar, she drew a long pole topped with a harsh beak of a head on one side and a blunt face on the other out from her hand and turned on Agate and Pearl. She wore a black bodysuit with a diamond closure at the neck, the whole affair stained with her splattered blood. Her hands slid on the curled metal of the war pick as she gripped it tight, breathing so heavily fearful sounds came from her on every exhalation.

“ _Wait!_ We're not trying to hurt you!” Agate yelled, holding up her hands as the tiny gem with her weapon, taller than she was, pulled it back. “We're on your side!”

“I don't think she cares!” Pearl grabbed her, pulling Agate out of the way of the blow. The beaklike point buried itself in the stone of the floor, and Agate and Pearl drew backwards as the gem turned her body towards them, wrenching the weapon out and reading herself for another attack. Unsure what else to do, Agate pulled her sabre from her shoulder. She held it at the ready, terrified that it wouldn't be enough. Beside her, Pearl reached tentatively upward, drawing outward with two hands until she held a tall flail. Pearl, looking over at Agate and seeing her fear, went from hesitant to determined, and turned toward the strange gem. Bleeding and animal, she rushed at them again, and again, Pearl reacted more quickly than Agate did. Whipping her flail forward, she twisted it around the small gem's pick and stepped to the side, nearly jerking it from her hands. As the gem lost her balance, the gray pearl leaned back, swinging her leg upward to catch her in the side of the head in a sharp kick.

This managed to dislodge the tiny gem from her weapon, and Pearl threw hers (and therefore, the pick) aside, balling her delicate hands into fists and squaring off with the stranger.

“Come on!” She taunted. “If you want to fight, we'll fight! You won't be the first gem I've beaten and you won't be the last!”  
Across from her, snarling, the little gem lunged at Pearl, head jerking as her fist connected with it. This did not, however, stop her assault- she jerked her face forward again, and, grabbing Pearl's shirt, slammed her knee into her ribs and dragged her to the ground, tiny, bleeding hands fixing around the gray pearl's neck.

This jogged Agate into action. She couldn't let this gem, who was clearly out of control, hurt Gray Pearl any worse than she already was. She rushed forward, and raised her sabre, slashing downward with all her might into the back of the stranger's neck. The gem stiffened, froze, and disappeared, leaving a thin, oblong, glassy black stone on the floor next to Pearl.

“Thank you,” she rasped, picking up the stone as she sat up slowly.  
“Yeah,” Agate said quietly.

Pearl cupped the small, translucent stone carefully before looking up at Agate with a bitter smile.

“Well, at least we know we're not alone,” she sighed as she stood up, lifting the stone to the light, examining it. “Although it looks like she may be in the same quandary I am. I think there's a fracture here,” she said, pointing to what looked to Agate to be a shadow no wider than a strand of hair.

“We can hold onto it until she regenerates,” Agate assured her. “Maybe after that she'll-”  
A bright light shot from the gem, startling both of them as the stranger began to regenerate- but there was something strange, something definitively _wrong_ about it. Her body was coming back in bits and pieces- gleaming bicolor eyes, and teeth, as she screamed and screamed until her screams became a shrill howl. Terrified, Pearl dropped the gem and backed away with Agate at her side as pale fire poured from the other gem's mouth. Her regeneration, already too fast, became horrible. The glassy black gem on her hand popped halfway out from her hand and a rippling series of plates crawled up her arms, her body stretching and reforming impossibly and horribly into a hulking, huge creature whose back scraped sparks against the ceiling. She was two thick, scaled arms and a thick body that tapered into a long, spiny tail, gleaming silver claws and a face too long and sharp and toothy to be recognizable as any kind of gem. Narrow, creeping legs erupted from its sides past its clawed forefeet, thorned and reminiscent of horrible bugs. Beside her, Agate heard Pearl whimper. Something told her that Pearl could not be depended on to take the initiative as she had before. She looked towards her friend.

“Get out of here,” she snarled, and, hand trembling on her sword, Agate stepped forward.

She waved her jagged sabre slowly, fluidly, as she advanced. The monster sidled away, filling the other side of the room round, hissing, gold fire burning in its long, narrow snout and soft nose. Agate didn't want to believe that this could be anything like the small, shiny, desperate gem from before- she didn't know how long she had been trapped there, in that closet, the rebel gems' banner pinning her- and she wasn't sure she wanted to. Perhaps it had been since the beginning of the war- perhaps it had only been a few days.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Gray Pearl scramble away past her. The corrupted gem lifted itself momentarily in her direction, but Agate stepped back into its view, gaining its attention again as she yelled, trying to draw it away from Pearl and towards the other rooms. Fire crackling, it lumbered toward her, claws digging deep furrows as it fumbled over the ground. Agate darted forward and back, flicking her sword at its silvery nose as it lumbered after her, breathing in, glowing gold between its armored ribs. She had no time to stop to think of creative profanities, and as Agate ducked back around the next turn she realized a better plan would have to do. She wasn't even sure of the floorplan of the place, and leaving this gem, now monster, somewhere it could easily claw its way out and cause further harm wasn't an attractive option either. Agate ran, easily outpacing the clumsy beast. She turned one corner after another until she felt she had gone quickly enough to get out of sight, and ducked into the first tiny closet she found just as a stream of napalm-like fire scorched the ground behind her.

She cursed as she turned in the tiny space. She couldn't stay hidden forever- it was only big enough for her to turn around and crouch low as she tried to avoid the notice of the monster. Angrily, she pounded her fists against her head. What was she thinking? She wasn't a fighter! Pearl was- why had she flaked out like that now, when she needed her? Wasn't she supposed to be some strong soldier, and Agate the coward? She fell back against the back wall of the closet in frustration, holding in any angry noises she wanted to make. She could not afford them. Was it still out there? Should she look? She didn't know. Nobody had prepared her for this. From the darkness of the closet, Agate pressed desperately against the walls. There had to be something else- why would there be so much space missing inside the rooms if there was no space between them? They didn't give. _All right, fine,_ she told herself. She turned and pressed her feet against her chosen wall. If there was no space, she'd make it. Gearing herself up, she pulled her legs in and kicked as hard as she could. It sounded hollow. Outside, she heard sniffing.  
Agate kicked again. The wall began to cave. She kept her sword clutched tight in case it pulled the door open. Instead, a high, clear cry from outside changed her plans.

_“Pearl!”_ she screamed, shoving the door open and rushing out. She could barely see the tip of the gem's flail over the dark, sparkling, hulking mass in the doorway. Its back was turned to her, and its sides glowed as it readied itself to attack the slender gem attracting its attention. Agate heard the rhythmic _tok_ sounds as the end of the flail battered the monster around the face.

“Do something!”

Pearl sounded desperate. There was none of the warlike confidence she had possessed fighting the gem before it had come back like this.

Agate ran along the side of the monster's massive tail and past its creeping legs. She halted just behind the monster's elbows. Lifting her sword, she plunged it into the glowing space between its ribs, wrenching downward as a flurry of heat and fire poured from the incision, whirling in a glowing wind through the circular room. With a horrible scream, it turned, a single burning, terrible eye fixed on Agate, trying in vain to turn enough to tear her to pieces with its claws or teeth. Its body curled as far as it could around her as the smell of burning skin and chitin filled the air as the monster set itself ablaze.

Its long mouth cracked open just enough to let out a hiss of air, and it disappeared in a flash of white light and sparks into the tiny, cracked oval on the floor. Slowly, Agate reached down and picked it up, hands shaking as she turned toward Pearl, who stood, pale and stiff-looking, in the back of the room next to the door they had come in. She was staring at the place the monster had fallen apart, her flail dissipating in her hands. Holding the glassy black stone, she walked slowly over.

“Pearl,” Agate said softly. “Put this in your bag.”

“No,” Gray Pearl begged. “Please, don't bring that near me.”  
“You have to!” she insisted. “It worked for all those other gems, kept them from coming back! It should work with this, right?”

Gray Pearl nodded hesitantly, and clumsily untied her bag, allowing Agate to put it in with the others. She looked ill and frightened, and Agate shook her gently.

“Come on. Let's get out of here.”

She walked the pearl out of the building, and sat her back down outside, leaning her against the outside wall.

“Are you okay?” She asked. Pearl shook her head, drawing her knees up to her chest and tucking her head downward, covering it with her arms. Unsure of what else to do, Agate just sat next to her awkwardly, waiting for some sign of what to do. Eventually, as the sky turned blue and the stars began to appear, Gray Pearl spoke again.

“I don't want to end up like that,” she whispered, voice muffled into her knees.

“You won't,” Agate assured her. Pearl tilted her head, looking at Agate sadly and sideways.

“How I wish I could believe that,” she whispered.

Agate patted her shoulder, trying to be consoling, and pet the back of her hair.

“You're going to be okay, Pearl- we'll find a way off this planet,” Agate insisted, and she felt Pearl sigh deeply. Pearl crossed her arms over her knees, and rested her chin on them, staring off into the dark again. The shadows made her eyes look sunken and tired, and though she knew Pearl was probably fine, it made Agate sad to see her this way.

“My bag should keep them dormant for as long as I need,” Pearl said softly. “I've never been able to bubble, but this is the next best thing- I don't have to worry about it popping, at least.” She hugged her knees. “Agate, I'm terrified about what could happen. I wouldn't want some part of me crawling around without my mind to guide it.” She looked up at Agate. “Do you remember when I tried to stop you, back when we were walking to the ships? When we were trying to leave with the rest of the homeworld gems?”

Agate nodded. “It was yesterday. Or,” she thought about it. “Maybe the day before? I don't know.”

“I wanted...” Pearl paused, running her hand through the back of her hair anxiously. “I wanted to say that if- if I do- if I break- will you promise you won't just leave me? You'll keep the fragments, like I did for those other gems?”

“Of course I will.” Agate said. “I promise.”

Pearl did not seem reassured- rather, Agate's promise seemed to make her more determined, and she spoke quicker.

“If I turn into a monster, you have to do the same thing. Don't just lock me up in some closet, okay? Keep me safe.”

“Pearl, I already said I would!” Agate insisted. This conversation was an uncomfortable one for her- sure, the gray pearl might break or corrupt eventually, but Agate didn't want to imagine herself navigating Earth on her own. As far as she was concerned, she would put that off forever- or at least as long as it was possible. Across from her, Pearl touched the (almost) perfectly circular gem on her forehead, running her fingers carefully along the chip.

“I know you did, Agate,” Pearl sighed. “I know you did.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello again!!! EMIL HERE :)
> 
> I hoped to get into some quality SU style action and I hope I did it well :3c here you bear witness to the corruption of lil Osumilite, which isn't TECHNICALLY a "gem" per se (but then, neither are pearls, so I'll give it a pass.) So sorry!
> 
>  
> 
> This one was completed rather late, so I may come back and touch up this chapter later. I may not write another chapter tomorrow, but I will soon if I can! I hope you like it B^) 
> 
> again, this chapter was chopped in two from the prior chapter, 3. if the lengths are a little odd, that's probably why :P


	5. in which the gems learn human things

They hadn't been sitting outside the building for too long before the sound of voices drew their attention. In the commotion, it had seemed that their human friend had run off and was now returning. Axinite and her small group approached them with excitement, if slight caution. The humans regarded the gem bunker with curiosity, looking from its interior to Agate and Pearl with surprise and respect before cautiously venturing in. After some time of caution, the gems heard them running around the interior of the building, exclaiming in surprise or excitement at various things they found. Unlike- or at least more than- the rest of her group, Axinite seemed concerned for the gems. She came toward them and crouched down, telling them something serious and grateful that neither one of them understood, but it served well enough to pull Gray Pearl out of her worrying. She smiled back at the young woman sadly, and though she didn't fully understand either, the human seemed to sympathize. 

“I guess we should keep going,” Gray Pearl said, and she stood up, readying herself to trek back through the jungle. Agate followed, but the human grabbed onto them again, seeming startled that they were leaving, and pulling them back towards where they had come. Irritated, Agate shook her hand off her arm, but Pearl spoke up. 

“Don't get upset- maybe they know about something else? It's not like they have any other way to tell us.”

Agate didn't really care, but after what she had seen in the last building, she just wanted to get this misadventure over with. 

"Fine. They had better not try to get us to work for them or something, though."

"I don't think anyone's doing that," Pearl scoffed. The path they followed this time took a slightly different slant than the other one, and after some time they arrived at the bank of a river. This time, it was Pearl's turn to be upset.

“Another river?” she cried, exasperated. “I almost lost the fragments the first time, I don't know if we can do this again!” 

“But you can see the bottom of this one,” Agate encouraged her. “Maybe it won't even be an issue and we won't have to cross it.”

After leading them down the bank, the humans stopped suddenly. Agate looked around.

“We're back where we started,” she groaned, looking over at what appeared to be the opposite side of the human encampment. In the clearing, the humans waved at them. Gray Pearl tried to be optimistic.

“That's not too bad. Maybe they've found something.”

Agate shrugged, feeling resentful already as they turned around, but Pearl seemed relieved about not having to cross the river- which, she guessed, made enough sense after what had happened last time. Although Agate still didn't care for the humans, and indeed, was now finding them to be more troublesome than charming, Gray Pearl seemed totally willing. As they walked back toward the humans, Agate followed her more than she followed the waving.

The humans seemed keen on involving the gems in their strange activities, at least to some degree- there was a great deal of emotive speech and gesture from Axinite as she indicated the gems occasionally to the other humans, and the force with which she told her story even held Agate's attention to a lesser degree. Although she didn't understand what she was saying, it was clear that she had been paying more attention than the gems had given her credit for- enough, seemingly, to describe the corrupted gem that Agate and Pearl had been forced to dispatch. This suggestion made Agate thoroughly uncomfortable. She could only imagine what kind of perceptions this human had about something she couldn't possibly understand.

After she had stood there for some time, one of the humans tried to get her attention. When Agate looked down, she saw he was trying to hand her some charred, dead animal that she absolutely did not want to see or even hear about.

“Oh no, I don't want this,” Agate insisted, gently passing the fish on to the nearest human, who seemed confused, but pretty glad anyway. The scene replayed itself several times as humans tried to be hospitable, but were met with a blank wall- the humans seemed a little put off by their refusal of the food that they offered, but tried to keep the smiles on their faces in a  _no? Really? That's all right_ reaction of anxious courtesy. Axinite seemed surprised that they refused all the food they offered  _and_ everything else they had, but they seemed to accept that the gems were very different than most of their peers. Despite the apparent hospitality, Agate felt strange about it- she did not consider these humans her real friends or even her peers, though Pearl seemed more willing to bend and accept them and at least try to follow their customs and respect their offers. She even attempted to consume their food, much to Agate's surprise, though she didn't look particularly satisfied with it. Agate wasn't  _upset_ about this, exactly, but she did feel the distinct and unsettling sensation of  _not belonging._ This did not surprise her- inasmuch as she felt, the company they now kept with the humans was one that was from the humans' convenience only. There was no way these humans, so weak they didn't even possess weaponry, could have dealt with the gem in the bunker without being slaughtered. She stood up.

“Where are you going?” Gray Pearl asked her. “You aren't leaving, are you?”

“No, don't worry. I'm just going to go check out the river.” 

“All right. I'll be right here.” 

Agate didn't look back, giving her a curt nod. She tried to slip quietly away from the human encampment, down the bank and to the bank of the river, sitting down there instead. This one was a lot less intimidating than the one that she and Pearl had capsized into, and the water ran smooth and clear to the dark, deep bottom. Agate occupied herself with this instead of the humans or Gray Pearl's apparent attempts at ingratiation, watching the fluid silver flashes of fish through the low gleaming light until the sun, now behind them, made it impossible to see past the flashes of fiery light on the water, and she no longer had a way to excuse herself from their company. 

Pearl had been leaning close to Axinite, both of them gesturing pointedly and watching one another. Each looked occasionally perplexed as the other spoke at various points, and out of curiosity, Agate approached them. 

“Hey,” she said, and the two of them looked up. “What are you doing?”

“Axinite was just teaching me a few words of her language,” Gray Pearl told her.

“Hm.” said Agate unintelligibly, and paused for a moment. “Do you want to leave?” 

Gray Pearl looked both alarmed and amused.

“Not really,” she chuckled awkwardly. She turned back to the human and said something quietly to her before standing up and joining Agate. “Actually, I'd like to sit with you for a while, if you're willing.”

Agate nodded, and they walked a short distance from the humans. She sat down in the grass at the treeline, falling backward and laying on her back.

“What did you want to say?” She asked as Gray Pearl, a little less violently, sat with her.

“I don't think you'll like it,” she said, but she didn't sound very serious.

“Try me.”

“I was actually hoping to stay for a while? It may be a good idea to learn their language,” she suggested. Agate was hesitant.

“What about our plans? To find anyone who was left behind, try to get off this planet?”

Pearl looked flustered. “That's still in effect,” she insisted. “I just don't see the harm in spending some time with these people, either, I mean- we're stuck here, aren't we?”

“I guess,” Agate muttered, leaning her head back. “Whatever.” 

“Oh,  _now_ what's wrong? There's no reason to be so grouchy. These humans have been nothing but kind to us.”  
Agate sat up angrily, turning towards her.  _“Yeah,_ because they're _ using  _ us, Pearl! You think they're just keeping us around out of some- altruism or something? You think they want to be  _ friends?” _

Pearl looked angry, then hurt. Avoiding Agate's gaze, she looked down at her hands. 

“They don't care about us,” Agate insisted. “They aren't like us. They aren't gems. It doesn't matter how much you  _ say  _ they're like us, they're  _ not!”  _

She only realized how loud her voice had been when Pearl looked back up at her angrily. 

“You're being cruel, Agate.” she whispered. “I like them.”

With a frustrated noise, Agate fell back. She didn't have the words to explain to Pearl why it bothered her so much- she didn't like being paid all the attention that the humans gave them, the faux friendly smiles with fear in their eyes disgusted her and made her want to get as far away as she could as quickly as she could, but she chose not to press the issue further. She didn't know why Gray Pearl felt such an attachment to them, but she  _ did  _ know that they hadn't found any way to help her, and if spending time with the humans made Pearl feel better or distracted her from her physical instability, perhaps it was a good thing. Despite her distaste for the humans and reluctance to consider them allies, she wanted to do what she could for the one person she knew she  _ did  _ consider one. 

“All right. Fine. We'll stay here as long as you want- but you have to promise  _ me  _ something.”  
“What is it?” Pearl asked skeptically.

“If you get any worse, like, with your gem- we're leaving.” 

Pearl sat in the dark in silence for some time, deep in thought, before nodding. 

“I think that's reasonable. But I'm going to hold you to it, and you have to stay with me, too.”

“Deal,” said Agate. 

It didn't take too long for Agate to start regretting her choice to allow Pearl authority over when they left. She had greeted Axinite with a bright smile and clumsy foreign speech and hand motions when she got stuck, but her clumsiness with their language didn't seem to bother her at all. Instead, she cheered and jumped up and down, grabbing Pearl's hands as if they had been friends for ages. Hanging back from the hubbub, Agate called to Gray Pearl.

“What did you say?” She asked. Pearl looked back at her.

“I told her we're staying,” she informed her. 

Agate could not permit herself to rail against Pearl's choice when she had only told her the prior night that it was hers to make. She bit her tongue and crossed her arms, and threw a sarcastic smile back at the humans that tried to engage her. She didn't want to ask how long. 

With Axinite's gentle and persistent teaching, Pearl went from an awkward tag-along to a real member of the group they lived with, spending more and more of her time learning the subtle, diligent crafts of the humans- foraging, weaving, fishing, working with the gourds and anything else they offered up to her. As she spent most of her time on the lookout for signs of other gems- most notably the Crystal Gems- Agate couldn't pretend that she didn't resent it, and it caused some strain between them, though neither one of them was willing to truly jeopardize their relationship by fighting about it. She felt a smug sense of satisfaction when, as the years began to tick by, Pearl and Agate learned how swiftly humans grew and died- then, when Axinite (now Pearl's close friend) no longer appeared at their doorway, a wave of guilt for enjoying the apparent fruitlessness of the work Gray Pearl had put into cultivating her relationships with them. They had buried her in the forest and Pearl had cried on her shoulder with such ferocity that Agate had come with her to the humans' strange vigil, where Pearl translated for her and told her that she, by then an old woman, had been well respected and loved. 

Agate had prepared herself to leave soon thereafter, assuming that Pearl wouldn't want to stay somewhere such painful memories were entangled, but Pearl didn't even consider it- on the contrary, she seemed shocked at the suggestion. 

“Why would I want to? No one around has heard word of any gem anywhere, we're safe here, and I'm fine. The people here would hate to see us go.”  
“You mean they'd hate to see  _ you _ go,” Agate said, but Pearl shook her head. 

“They like you, too! You would know that if you spoke to them.  It's almost like you don't  _ want _ to learn,” Pearl scolded her. “We've been here for years, you may as well learn how!” 

“They could learn  _ our _ language,” she grumbled, but resentfully accepted Pearl's offer. She gradually came out of their home to do more than just a grunt of acknowledgment at the people who lived around them. They tagged along with the humans as they moved around, then eventually settling into agriculture with more strangers, citizens of the cities that were gradually being built around them. Agate felt small sense of comfort in being able to (kind of) speak to the humans native to their area, who often came to her or Gray Pearl when danger came to their home, be it an animal threat or natural disaster, for aid. (Of course, Agate and Pearl weren't alone in these efforts-  _ most  _ people were enlisted for aid when natural disasters occurred.)

Despite doing her best to keep a measure of distance between her and the humans, Agate found a sense of comfort walking around the long, rock-bottomed and carefully-planned irrigation channels and through the stone streets of the cities. Although she had promised Gray Pearl she wouldn't leave, her sense of restlessness grew through the centuries- something in her felt like a timer ticking down to something she did not want. With some practice, Agate constructed a telescope and with it in hand, she spent her nights watching the vast black sky for signs of the Homeworld gems' return, unaware she was watching the wrong area entirely.

She was doing this from the outskirts of one of the cotton fields when one of the humans that Gray Pearl was close with came running to find her. 

“Agate, hurry! Come quickly!” 

“What is it?”

“It's Pearl!”  
Agate did not wait for further explanation. 

Pearl sat on a stone, hands folded over her gem. She looked up at Agate with the same look of petrified horror she had seen thousands of years ago, when they had fought the corrupted gem in the bunker. Agate knelt in front of her.

“What's the matter, Pearl?”

Pearl lowered her hands, shimmering flakes of gray resting in her palms. 

“We have to leave." 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the timeskip at the end of this chapter will span a few thousand years, moving us from 6-5.5k BCE to the common era. The next chapter will be placed at about 2000 or 1500 BCE to add a bridge between protocivilization to the beginning of the mysterious decline of the Norte Chico. This decline is thought by anthropologists to be due to shifting weather patterns rendering the irrigation systems that they used to make their agricultural systems work useless. So you, reader, may be wondering: why skip four, five thousand years? Why can't I just split Agate and Pearl's time with the Norte Chico up into sections, so that we can read about the very cool cities they built and very intriguing religious and economic life?
> 
> Well, I chose to do this for two reasons. One, the narrative needs to move chronologically forward at a pace that's manageable to the reader and two, the last thing i want to do is misrepresent anyone's culture, and by writing about the behaviors of a people whose sociological and cultural structures I don't really know anything about, I run the risk of doing so. 
> 
> In the coming chapter, Agate and Pearl will move forward (and north) from what would be present day Peru or Venezuela, toward central America and the drama that you (if you know anything about history) probably know will be shortly unfolding there (and believe me, there WILL be drama!) I won't give too much away, but suffice it to say that there will be another gem in this fanfiction who stays in for a much longer time than Osumilite did.


	6. in which loyalties are discussed

The gems had acquired few possessions during the thousands of years they had spent with the humans, moving around the area they had now come to know fairly well. This was not because they didn't have the chance, but they simply had little need for them- at least in Agate's eyes. Gray Pearl had gone out of her way to learn what Axinite's people were willing to teach her- she could weave, fish, construct a dwelling, even speak the myriad languages the humans developed and work with the select plants that they cultivated. Though the tiny group she had volunteered to stay with was now long gone, their cities risen and fallen, Pearl had found a way to stay near nearby. Despite the conflicts that had arisen between nations after Axinite's was gone, their time there had been more peaceful than any amount of comparable time on Homeworld.

Gray Pearl was the one who had built and decorated their dwelling, going out of her way to acquire colorful items that she felt might lift Agate's spirits, though this didn't have too much of an effect it was the thought that counted. Now, they prepared to leave even these meager possessions behind. There were a few that Gray Pearl insisted on- she had created a backpack for herself that was far easier to carry than her awkward sash-and-bag combination, and she brought a long length of rope and a sizable length of cloth under the insistence that it could be 'useful for practically anything.'

“We don't need any of this,” Agate had argued as she watched Gray Pearl, kneeling on the floor with her things on a bench before her, packing both meticulously and slowly. She had persuaded her to give up taking any nets or beads or other miscellanea she had gathered. Agate took the opposite approach- anything she had constructed, she had destroyed rather than leave behind for anyone else to have, which Pearl thought was a terribly jealous way of going about things.

Although she didn't have very much, Pearl was very particular about how she put her things together, especially since she had sewn the flakes from her gem into a very small pouch which she had placed inside the larger back of fragments with gentle, almost worshipful care. She hadn't really been sure what to do with it otherwise. When she saw her reflection in water or another shiny surface, the thumb-sized chip and the tiny, matte spots where her gem had flaked stuck out to her in a profoundly unsettling way. Agate had not spoken to her about it any further, though Gray Pearl suspected she was just trying to be kind. She had been pacing their home for the entire evening, back and forth down the hall, watching the humans that lived nearby them. Her expression had seemed to change each time Pearl looked up at her, from frustrated to sad to frantic and anxious- eventually, Pearl just stopped looking. She wondered if Agate was scared for her, or for herself. Now, she had finally settled down.

As Gray Pearl stood up and turned to her, she was standing in the doorway in the last light of the day, leaning on the frame as she watched the city in the distance as the sun set behind them. The red rays touched each level of the city in succession, leaving the highest tiers of the huge buildings illuminated last. Pearl waited and watched her, as red as the horizon, as she stood there silently.

“I'm ready to go,” she said gently.

Agate looked over her shoulder and nodded. “Good. We can take the road north out of town.”

“Where are we going?”

“I heard about something strange northeast of here, near the ocean. Humans in the city said they saw something strange over the water- something big they didn't recognize. It could be a gem craft.”  
Agate didn't sound totally certain, but committed nonetheless.

“This could be what we've hoped for,” Agate added, noticing the skeptical look on Pearl's face.

“But you've been watching the sky every night for years. How could you have missed a spaceship?”

“I could've missed it.”

This was true enough. The sky was very big and the two of them were very small.

“We should get going,” Agate urged, but Pearl seemed torn as she shouldered her bag.

“What about my friends? I sort of... I wanted to say goodbye.”

“I don't know if that's a great idea.”

Pearl thought about it. Part of her dreaded the thought of never seeing the humans again, at least the few she had become very close to, but she knew they would know the significance of her decision regardless of what she said to them. She had considered bringing a few with her, but she doubted they would go, and would likely become upset if she woke them.

As if sensing Pearl's reticence, Agate spoke again.

“I know you're attached to them, but I think it's better if we just go.”

This was true, and Pearl couldn't deny it- she did feel a sense of attachment to the humans here. They had provided her with a sense of belonging and comfort that hadn't come easily to her. She had grown fond- _too_ fond, in Agate's opinion- of them and their curious habits. In her heart, she wanted to plead with Agate to let her walk through the city one last time, but perhaps it was kinder to both of them not to. She thought of the worry and sadness telling people she knew she was leaving would cause, and felt selfish.

“I didn't think you cared for the humans at all,” Gray Pearl said, her voice wavering slightly. Agate looked both surprised and confused at this.

“I don't,” she said flatly. “I just know they'd slow us down.”

Pearl scoffed. “My mistake. I thought you were thinking of their feelings.” 

Agate didn't answer. 

“You hate them that much, huh?”

“Pearl,” Agate growled, “don't do this right now.”

“Oh no, you're right. Of course. Let's just go,” she said, trying to keep the anger and sarcasm in her voice to a minimum. She stormed out the door, and the two of them left their home and began to walk past the humans' farms and houses.

She shot one last look at the city before they walked down the dirt trade road that sprawled before them, illuminated only by the pale, clear moonlight from the yellow moon high above them and the sparkling, distant fires of the city. Hearing Agate stomping behind her even more loudly than usual (probably trying to make some kind of point about how mad she was) she sighed, and turned down the black trade road that led to the north.

Their life had been fairly harmonious when they had lived together, surprisingly- Agate and Pearl had very deliberately put most of their problems on the backburner in order to make their time together tolerable. Although Agate didn't really care about the humans' opinion of her, she did care about Gray Pearl's, and had tried to stay at least decently mannered with her and the people she spent time with. Their fights had been relatively few, but being back on the road dredged up the memory of doing it all those thousands of years ago and all the tensions that came with them. Eventually, Gray Pearl spoke up.

“They really do care about us, you know.”

“I could see them caring about _you._ Us, not so much.”

“You're wrong.”  
“Maybe they care about what we _do_ for them, but that doesn't mean they care about _us._ ”

“You're  _wrong,_ ” Gray Pearl insisted, more forcefully. 

“I'm wrong?” Agate sounded indignant. “Why don't you prove it?”  
Pearl fussed with the straps of her backpack, fuming and biting anxiously at her lip. Agate knew perfectly well that there was no way Gray Pearl could prove anything about the humans' motivations, especially now that they had left them behind. Even if she turned around and polled the entire city, Agate could disregard her and say that they had only been too scared to answer her negatively.

“They worked very hard to get us involved, Agate! They taught me about them- I helped them built their walls, held their children, saw their ceremonies- and you think they did that out of what, selfishness?” She heard Agate try to cut in and interrupt her, but she just raised her voice and carried on.

“Those people- Axinite's, too- never said anything bad about us! They always checked in, they always offered us things even though you always refused! They always treated me with kindness, in their own strange way, and never _once_ acted like I was _anything_ less than a member of their community!” At first, she sounded angry, but as she went on, it faded from her voice and Pearl just sounded sad. 

“They never thought I was less than they are. They never poked fun at me for being broken, even though they know- well, I guess they _knew-_ that I am.” From behind, Agate saw her run her hand over her face briefly. She inhaled deeply before continuing with renewed force.

“The humans let me join them. That's more than Homeworld did.” 

Agate wasn't sure what to say. She was galled at the dismissiveness with which Gray Pearl seemed to abandon her people. 

“I thought you _wanted_ to go back home,” she challenged. “Did you change your mind just because some weird bipedal apes stacked blocks with you?” 

“Of _course_ I want to go home! I just... I can't pretend it didn't hurt me when they flew off.”

“So you're leaving them because of that?”  
Gray Pearl stopped short and whipped around, fists clenched. Agate stopped as well, startled.

“ _They left us first, Agate!”_ She snapped. 

“So what, that's it? You're not loyal to us anymore because they had no space on the ship now?”  
Throwing up her hands, Gray Pearl's face twisted into an angry laugh.  
“ _Us?_ Honestly, Agate? _Us?_ Where's this _us_ coming from, when all this time the only _us_ has been you and me? You say _us_ when it comes to Homeworld but when we're the ones walking out here, it's all ' _you'_ and _'my'?”_

“That's not true! I've been here this whole time, haven't I?” Agate yelled.

“ _That's not what I mean!”_

“Well, that's what _I_ mean!” Agate advanced on her, snarling. “We've been here like- like _five thousand years!_ If you _really_ wanted to go home we could have _done it by now!_ You've been wasting your time with these stupid humans this _whole time!”_

Pearl took a small half step backwards, looking hurt.   
“Wasting my time? That's honestly what you think?”  
“Well, what would _you_ call it? Any loyal gem would have done anything she could to get back! That's our  _home!”_

Pearl scoffed. 

“Are you _kidding_ me? Where was all this loyalty when the Homeworld needed you in the war? The one time you were really supposed to do something for them, you _ran away-_ or have you forgotten?”  
“That's different!” 

“To hell it is,” Gray Pearl spat. “You have _no right_ to do this _now,_ Agate. You want to talk about loyalty? Fine, we will! _I was loyal!_ I did everything I could for the Homeworld and they _threw me away!_ You really think they want _you_ back? You're a _traitor!”_

Before Agate could react, Pearl advanced on her, and it dawned on Agate just how much taller than her she was when she wasn't slouching or crumpled on the ground in sorrow. Despite herself, she felt intimidated.

“You talk so much about what I should do for other gems and what we owe them, but you don't really care. You don't like the humans, you don't like the Homeworld. It's _so much easier_ to just sit on the fence, isn't it? If we do get back, you should pray that they go easy on you after how you abandoned them.”

Agate looked away. 

“Yeah, well, you were loyal and I... wasn't. It doesn't matter. We're both stuck here anyway, and no one cared either way.”

As she said it, they both fell silent. It was true- their loyalty, or lack thereof, hadn't mattered, and Agate's care for other gems hadn't served her at all. They had both ended up powerless and stranded with little chance of rescue. Even then, who was she to say that she cared for other gems at all, when Gray Pearl was right- she had betrayed them, and had been betrayed in turn. Perhaps, for Agate, this was just, but Pearl hadn't done anything to deserve the hand she had been dealt- she had done nothing but what she was supposed to do- was the fact that she couldn't keep doing it really justification enough to abandon her, as Fluorite had implied? If so, if the end result was the same, why bother? Why risk life and limb when she could have just as easily run away, and avoid the harm that had come to her?

Gray Pearl seemed to be thinking the same thing. Her shoulders slumped, and she stepped back a little.

“I'm sorry,” Agate fumbled awkwardly. “I didn't mean...”

“No,” she said softly. “You're right. I'm sorry too. Let's keep going,” She sighed. They turned back and walked next to one another now. 

“Honestly, I don't know how I feel. All my friends are on Homeworld- all my history. It's my only chance to be healed. It's still, well, my home. I know there must be gems that miss me.” 

“Oh. Yeah. I...” 

Agate trailed off. She hadn't spent much time thinking about the other gems on Homeworld. Her attitude had earned her few friends, and her moodiness had been an obstacle to real connection with her peers. She tended to struggle with things the other gems she knew accepted readily, and her demands for justification were a burden most didn't feel the desire to engage with. Gray Pearl might have friends thinking about her, but Agate doubted anyone honestly missed her. 

“Agate?” 

“What?”  
“You stopped talking.” Pearl sounded concerned.

“It's fine. I was just thinking.” 

“What about?”

She hesitated. Gray Pearl slowed her pace, watching her. 

“Is it Homeworld?” Her voice was gentle.

Avoiding her look of concern, Agate watched the movement of the animals in the forest. This conversation was something she had artfully avoided. It only made her question why she was so keen on going back when it wasn't like anyone would really care- as Gray Pearl had pointed out, she had literally run from service to them.

“Kind of,” she finally said. “You know I don't care for the humans like you do, but I guess I don't know if I'm all right with how things were back there either. I'm not sure I could call myself loyal to either one and still be honest. I shouldn't have tried to criticize you.”

Gray Pearl looked somewhat uncomfortable.  
“I didn't see it as a criticism of  _me,_ ” she said meekly. “Though I suppose I could see-”

“No!” said Agate, quickly. “That came out wrong. I don't  _want_ to criticize you. You didn't do anything wrong.” 

She smiled. “I thought you disapproved of quite a few of my choices.” 

“Well... they're yours to make.” 

Pearl clasped her hands in front of her. They both felt unsettled, but perhaps it had been good to talk about it- at least she had been able to voice her feelings on the subject. 

“Tell me more about where we're going?” She asked Agate gently. 

Agate nodded. “From what I've gotten, it sounds like it's been moving erratically- I couldn't get much that made sense, but I know there's been multiple sightings of some kind of large craft over the water- maybe the land? I don't know. But the last one was near a bay that's not too far away- at least, for us. I think there could be some old gem architecture there on the water there, too, so I'm optimistic.” 

“What kind of a craft?” 

“I have no idea. All that was consistent was that it was big. Some people said it was dark colored, some people said it was light. Humans aren't very good at recalling details, I guess, even if they saw it themselves.” 

“That's true.” Pearl said thoughtfully. She looked back down the road. 

Their talk was more peaceful for the rest of the night, and by the morning they had managed to break through the edge of the rainforest and into more clear, open land. Neither one was sure what they would find, if anything, and where they would go from there if they found nothing. On the other hand, if they found  _something_ , they weren't sure what they would do then, either. 

“It shouldn't be too long, I don't think. Maybe it _will_ be the Homeworld,” Agate said, more to herself than Gray Pearl. Pearl looked down at her shoes, and worried that perhaps Agate was right. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello all! sorry for the long wait. my cat (stormcrow) chewed my laptop cord and when I plugged it in, sparks shot everywhere! i couldn't use mine anymore so I'm using my partner's until my new cord arrives. For now, I'm stuck drafting by traditional means (a teal notebook!!) so the chapters are coming up a little more slowly. this chapter ran way too long, so i had to chop it in half! I'm going to try to have the other half up tonight, though, which will have a lot more action. i also put some time into drawing some of the characters from the story (osumilite, agate, pearl) and i'm considering adding up a chapter that's not really a chapter, but art/fanart/notes from 'production' i guess lol. anyway, here it is! the rest will be up later. enjoy reading the boring bits about allegiance and social obligation ;^0


	7. the harbor

The bay within the northern shore was covered in brilliantly green sand- tiny, water-worn flecks of color in pale yellow-green, forest green, and some that were nearly teal and everything in between. They combined to form a beach that Gray Pearl and Agate found both eerie and beautiful, surrounded by tall, wide trees that spread their twisted branches out over the clear and dark water. As they walked into the ruins of the gem harbor, Agate looked over the shore and into the deep, sparkling bay. There was a sense between them that something was strange, though neither could put their finger exactly on it.

“There aren't any fish,” Gray Pearl said finally, peering over her shoulder. “With all the underwater rubble going out toward the sea, you would think it would be a safe haven.”

She was right- lines of jagged black stone were obvious even in the dull light, old remnants of what had once been a vast harbor for homeworld forces. They led up and onto the beach where the last of the ruined buildings stood silent, seemingly long abandoned. All together, it didn't impart a particular sense of hope in Agate.

“It's really very eerie. It's so silent here. I can see why the homeworld would choose it, though- perhaps for that very reason,” Pearl continued. Agate wondered if she just wanted to use her own voice to cut the curious lack of noise, or if she really cared about what she was saying. She ran her hand along the smooth pale stripe on the wall of the building she walked next to, the southernmost one in the harbor. It was one of only a handful of intact ones on the beach, all rectangular, all the same smooth glossy black and icy blue.

Out over the water, the black guidelines radiated out toward the sea, echoed by the half-moons behind the buildings on land. They were marks for the landing and docking of ships of various kinds, though few had remained distinguishable, leaving only short lengths and points breaking the surface of the water and the path of the soft waves of the bay. Behind them, the arcs of stone would have been used for starships if the trees had not overcome access to them- this, more than anything else, gave Agate pause and made her wonder if perhaps the humans' rumor had no basis. Around the treeline, the sand was barely scorched- if something had been there, it hadn't been recent.

Crouching at the edge of one such site, Gray Pearl ran her hand through the sand.

“I'm surprised there isn't much glass here,” she chatted absentmindedly. “Though I guess I wasn't here, and I don't know what temperatures the engines ran at.” She laughed nervously. “I never did come this far north during the war.”

“Neither was I,” Agate said, though it was obvious. “Do you see anything? Like something broke the trees, maybe landed here?”

“No,” She answered, dusting off her hands on her hips. “It's cold, and the plants all along the beach aren't even wilted, let alone broken. If the Homeworld flew ships over this harbor, they didn't land here.” She shook her head as she turned and walked back toward her friend, who lingered in the arched doorway of the building she had been examining.

“We should take a look in here. There's all kinds of stuff- it hasn't been cleared out like the last one.”

At the mention of _the last one,_ the small smile dropped from Gray Pearl's face. She hesitated next to Agate in the door, leaning her head in.

The pale stripe that ran across the midsection of the building cast an eerie soft light in the cluttered interior, setting strange shadows on the items inside- broken chairs and scattered objects, for the most part. Slowly, Agate entered, kicking a few of the debris around with the toe of one shoe. A strange sound alerted her- a dull silver cylinder rested at her feet. Picking it up, Agate turned it in her hands- it was dusty, about the length of her arm, and one end was hollow. She turned it towards her face, a bit impulsively, and saw something pale and thin curled inside.

“Pearl!” Agate called excitedly, looking back at the doorway where the slender gem lingered. She was looking anxiously around the room, brushing her soft purple hair out of her face.

“What's the matter?”

“Nothing. I'm fine!” She said, but Agate could hear anxiety in her voice. She knew she wasn't being truthful, but she could guess why.

“There's no one else here, you know- it's okay. Look, its just the one room,” she said, approaching her slowly. Gray Pearl seemed only slightly relaxed by this, but didn't come forward.

“I'll be right with you the whole time. Don't worry.”

Pearl didn't answer, but walked slowly toward Agate as Agate held the cylinder out towards her. She looked almost shameful as she took it.

“You don't have to be scared, I mean... you're a good fighter. You can handle anything that comes up. We did before,” Agate reassured her. Pearl didn't meet her eyes.

“I guess the humans did teach me quite a bit,” she sighed. “I can figure out something to help us, so long as we're together.” She gave Agate a hesitant smile. “I just don't want to... see anything like... what we saw before.”

“I know. Neither do I,” Agate assured her. She touched her arm, and Pearl nodded, returning her attention to the cylinder. Together, they walked to the other side of the room, where an angled counter jutted from the wall, littered with the remains of years long past- broken pieces of glass and metal, thin panels snapped and shattered into uselessness. It was one of the only surfaces available to use, and Pearl cleared a space carefully before delicately pulling the thin and translucent sheet from the canister. “Oh!” She exclaimed as the edge of the sheet crumbled in her fingers. Quickly, she managed to get it onto the counter- though it fractured into several long pieces. “I'm so sorry!” Pearl cried. “I'm so sorry, I... should have been more careful.”  
“No, it's okay. It's just old,” Agate said, nudging the pieces out until they formed their old approximate shape. “See?”

Pearl nodded. “Sort of.” She peered closer. “It looks like a map, though without the proper light I can hardly read it.”

Agate laughed. “Is that all? Hold on.”

With one forearm, she swept the debris and dust from the table next to them and leapt onto the counter.

“Agate, what are you doing?”

“What you asked,” She said, and crept up to the translucent window, crouching down.

“Be careful,” Gray Pearl urged, fruitlessly sheltering the map as Agate took aim and slammed her fist through the glass, creating a jagged hole. She smirked back at Pearl.

“Does that work?”

Pearl nodded. “I suppose so,” she said as Agate slid down next to her. “It looks like there's some kind of recurring mark here, where I think we are?”

Agate leaned in as Pearl pointed in an arc over a pale rectangular mark where a pair of vertical lines demarked... something.

“No, I don't think that's right- this should be us if that's the treeline, right? I mean, this has a lot more buildings, but this one is still the closest,” Agate said. Squinting at the broken map, Pearl nodded.

“You may be right, but then what are those lines? There are more here-” she pointed towards the other side of the map, into the trees, where another set of lines emerged from the forest.

“I don't know. It looks totally different here from how it actually looks now. I mean, they taught me to read maps on Homeworld, but I don't recognize it. This looks like something the gems that were here must have made for themselves- maybe they swapped out a symbol we normally use with some kind of coded one.”

“Yes, I suppose both the harbor and this map have been dealt some real damage,” Pearl sighed. “If I could only pick it up, it would be so much easier to interpret- I can hardly see these faint little lines.”

“Maybe there's no need,” Agate said, glancing out the broken window and down the beach where another building stood. “We can go straight to it, whatever it is- this looks like the next closest building, right? So that should be where the lines are, whatever they are.”

“Let's not get our hopes up. This place is pretty broken- it looks like whatever gems _were_ here left in a big hurry.” Despite her words of caution, Pearl didn't wait, and trotted quickly towards the building marked on the map. Following after her, Agate crossed the short length of beach between the building they had been in and the larger one Gray Pearl headed into.

It took only a few seconds for her to stop, and for Agate to realize that something was off. Pearl looked nervous and defensive as she moved into the main room- besides two angled counters in the left corners, there was only a smooth gray door at the other side. This was not what she was concerned about, though- there was an unusual amount of human debris scattered and broken around the main room.

“Agate,” Pearl said softly, “I think there were some humans here.” Her voice was low and cautious. She bent over, sifting through the deserted belongings before lifting a jagged, rusty-colored piece of pottery. “Look- this is ceramics. These people were here recently- they're modern.” She was sounding more and more concerned as she put the broken piece back on the ground. It was appearing more and more like there had been some kind of deliberate damage- some kind of struggle.

Directly across from them, there was another door, and Agate examined the floor closer to it. There in dark forest mud were some prints that she had never seen on Earth before- large and C-shaped. She slowly pulled her sabre from her shoulder, glancing briefly around outside. She saw nothing. If another corrupted gem was here running amok, she wasn't sure Gray Pearl would be able to handle it- not physically, but emotionally. Pearl saw her looking around, but pretended not to notice, glancing back at the items on the floor before she straightened up and moved back to Agate's side.

“There's another room back there,” Agate said softly, and turned towards it, fearful of what she might find. The door slid open as Agate approached, and the gems held their breath.

There was no gem or catastrophic damage in the room, rather only a disappointment. Another round, shining warp, cracked from end to end from a massive impact in the center. A sledgehammer as tall as Agate was buried in the light blue crystalline surface, glinting in the light introduced from the larger room. There were no human debris here- only the hammer, buried with one fell stroke of some unknown, desperate gem's hand. Behind Agate, Pearl exhaled a shaky sigh.

“Another bust,” Agate grumbled, climbing onto the warp and lifting the hammer. In the light, it was impressive- its handle was fluidly-shaped, clear, and vitreous. Its head, though dented, was still relatively intact.

“It's a beautiful weapon. I wonder who it belonged to,” Gray Pearl said softly from the doorway, looking up at Agate.

“Yeah,” Agate agreed, setting the hammer back down on the broken warp before hopping down. The strange unease that came with the damage to the humans' encampment was almost forgotten in the almost romantic solitude of the warp room, and the untold story behind its strange isolation.

The pair picked their way back through the main room as the door slid shut behind them with a muffled whoosh. They walked on, through the other door, and back onto the beach. They proceeded in silence together down the beach. around a slight curve and almost immediately froze. Red human blood drenched the glittering, beryl green sand on the other side. Beside her, Agate felt Pearl clutch suddenly onto her arm, fingers digging into her. In turn, she gripped her sabre harder.

“Where are they?”

Pearl's voice was suddenly very small.

“I don't know.”

Agate walked over to the pooled blood. She traced the dragged-out lines of congealing red with her eyes as they ran off up the shore and near the looming, twisted trees. Between the roots were the pounded semicircular prints from before, and as the blood trail turned, dripping back down the beach.

“There was more than one human here,” Agate murmured as she followed it down the beach. “It looks like one got headed off here. They tried to go back there, but got stopped that way too...” she crouched down, looking at the distance from one set of prints to the other. “How big do you think this gem was?” Agate wondered aloud, and looked up at Gray Pearl.

She looked almost white, the uneven shine of the damaged nacre on her gem on her skin even seemed sickly.

“Did they get away from her?”

Agate looked away. As she moved further, the drops turned into lines and pools, glimmering red over the tiny varied greens. As they rounded the next curve, Pearl's question was answered: lying on their backs were four young humans like the ones from the city they had come from, their bodies marred by deep red, nearly black piercing wounds and cuts into them. Perhaps most upsetting to Pearl, their heads were removed and placed above them.

Pearl clapped her hands over her mouth, stifling a cry of anguished horror. Agate stood up and took a step back from the bodies. Gently, she put a hand on Gray Pearl's shoulder.

“Come on,” she urged softly. “You don't have to look at this.”

Still covering her mouth, Pearl began to cry. “Those are only _children!”_ she sobbed into her hands. Briefly, she reached out towards the bodies, but pulled back. Her whole arm shook.

“How could- how could _anyone-”_ she struggled over her words as Agate took hold of her more firmly.

“Pearl, come on. We can't do anything.”

“No- we should have been here!” Her voice cracked into a loud shout. Her hands dropped to her sides. _“We should have done something!”_

“Stop screaming!” Agate hissed.

“Agate, they- they can't even be _twenty! We should have saved them!”_

“Whoever killed them just did it! They've got to still be around!”

Pearl jerked herself from Agate's grasp.

“I don't care! She can come out and- _she can face me!”_

A shrill and inhuman scream echoed from up the beach. The gems' heads snapped around to see an animal neither one of them had ever encountered- something tall and uneven with jerking legs, twisting impossibly- no, that didn't seem right. Agate blinked. It was not one animal, but three, with three riders who appeared human, if strange. Another cry echoed from the foremost creature as the figure on its back pulled at the reins, pulling its head toward the gems.

“Pearl, get your flail,” Agate said quickly as she turned, eyes fixed on the riders. No sound came from behind her.

She looked back over her shoulder at Gray Pearl, who just stared fearfully and guiltily back at her. Her cheeks flushed lavender.

“I can't,” she whispered.

“What do you mean, _you can't?”_

“I _can't-_ it's my gem, and-”  
“Wait, _what?! Why didn't you tell me?”_

“I- I don't know! I was scared, I thought- I'm sorry!” Pearl cried.

Agate stared from Pearl to the riders and back, mind racing.

“Run!” She barked at Pearl. “Run! Go back to the warp room!”

“But w-what about you?”

“I'm right behind you! Just _go!”_ Agate shoved her. Pearl looked desolate. She paused before turning tail and darting back down the beach. Almost immediately, the riders spurred their horses forward, one raising a glinting gray lance toward the clear blue sky. Agate stepped away from the bodies, watching them as they shot towards her. She wasn't sure what to expect, but they had to have killed the humans she had seen before- nothing else made sense to her. Clearly, it would be nothing good. Still, for once, Agate was determined not to run- she gritted her pointed teeth as their faces came into focus behind their silver helmets.

A sound like thunder burst and a black blur shot before the riders, terrifying their horses and sending the sand up in a burst of glitter. They reared and turned tightly away, pushed and urged by their riders back the way that they had come as quickly as they had approached.

Panting heavily, Agate turned towards the bay, confused. No more than fifty feet out in the bay, a gleaming pointed hull caught the light, pointed to the north toward the direction the fleeing riders had come from. Shading her eyes, Agate could see a pair of huge masts and white sails occluding the afternoon sun, bringing a huge, low ship into focus. Two rows of long oars protruded like insectoid legs from the side, dipping into the clear water as shadows raced in the darkness above them before another cannon cracked the silence, blasting further up the beach. This one found its mark, throwing the nearest horse and rider into his companions in a cacophony of breaking bones and screams.

The ship seemed almost to chase them up the shore before running close to the upper curve of the bay. A long rope flung from the upper deck of the craft, followed by a single figure rappelling downward. It moved quickly to shore, then just as quickly down the sand, seemingly inattentive to the rowboats following. Stunned, Agate hesitantly advanced after the downed riders as the figure charged towards them. As the figure neared her, she felt her breath catch- the stranger's hand moved to her leg and pulled back, followed closely by gleaming blue light.

A wicked axelike tool with a long point slammed with a bang through the first rider's helmet, the one who had been nearest to the cannonball and was thus closest to death, if not already dead. The stranger, who Agate knew had to be a gem, climbed onto the dying horse and wrenched the man's head from his body. With her free hand, she pulled it from the point of her axe and tossed it aside with a dismissive jerk before moving onto the other two, dropping her weapon to fall on them in a hail of careless, almost joyful violence. They screamed in a language Agate had never heard and said things that sounded terrible, but Agate was unable to turn away. She could barely see the blood against the stranger's knee-high, navy boots. It seemed too long before she finally released the weapon and turned to look at Agate, climbing off the dead horses and walking down the beach with a strange, smug stride.

Her hair was short, dark and wavy, and she brushed it out of her face as she bounced towards Agate, almond-shaped eyes flicking over her, sizing her up as she approached. Agate, though, was not as concerned with this display of disrespect and violence as she was with the oval gem on the front of her right thigh, glinting through a deliberate shred in her white leggings. She waited anxiously, sabre in hand, as the stranger drew to a stop in front of her.

“Are you a gem?”

Her voice was loud and demanding, so different from Gray Pearl's normally clear, gentle (or anxious) one.  
“I said, you're a gem, right?”

“Y... yeah. I am.”

The stranger held out her hand so suddenly Agate nearly chopped it off. She looked from the proffered hand to the other gem's face rapidly, and didn't see much hostility. Slowly, she released her sabre and shook her hand.

“I'm Iolite. What are you?”

Agate swallowed nervously. “Agate,” she rasped. “Thanks for... helping me out, I guess.”

Iolite looked bemused. “Helping you?” She thought about it. “Oh, you mean the humans! I doubt they would have given you any trouble- still, I take every chance I get to improve my crew's aim.”

She laughed. Agate didn't. Iolite looked at her sympathetically, surprised at her lack of humor.

“Goodness, you're so serious! How long have you been here, Agate?” she asked, very friendly.

“A few thousand years, I guess. I don't know.”

Iolite nodded sympathetically. “Oh, the war, of course. What a shame.” She trailed off, putting her hands on her hips, gazing off for a second. “A very troublesome thing.”

While the gem seemed lost in thought, Agate took a step back. She had spent so long wishing to see another gem, now that she was, she was beginning to regret it. Iolite didn't seem to notice this, however, and snapped right back into their conversation.

“Well!” She said brightly, “Agate, I'll tell you what. Why don't you come with me? I'd love to show another gem around my ship. It's been a very long time since I've seen one.”

“I... I don't know,” Agate awkwardly said. “I... was just exploring the harbor, so maybe not.”  
Iolite looked very disappointed. “Oh, no! Nonsense, of course you can spare the time!”

Agate forced a very fake laugh. “Yeah, sorry. I mean. Definitely, another time. And really, thanks for... that... since the humans you shot, I mean, I don't know if you knew, but they killed a few young humans down the way, and we-” she stopped. Perhaps it was best not to mention Gray Pearl. She cleared her throat. “It wasn't a welcome sight.”

Iolite laughed again, even harder.

“Oh no, you didn't think that- those little soldiers?” She jerked her thumb back towards the foreign humans. “They didn't kill those humans!” Iolite said, and clapped her on the shoulder and pulled her forward, to her side, as she led her towards her ship despite Agate's resistance. Iolite smiled. “I did.”

 


	8. interim materials (chapter that's not a chapter, aka Chapter 7.5)

Life has been hectic over the summer for me, and I'm planning on returning and updating _Brief History_ very soon, so in the meantime I'm providing some stuff to go along with the work! I'm deep in progress on chapters 8 and 9 now, and so far things are on schedule as far as chapters ending, which means (tentatively!) that ABHA will be ending on chapter 12, sometime pretty soon. ABHA is important to me as a personal project in part because it's the first fanfiction I've ever put out into the public eye, so as niche as my audience is, y'all are important to me, too.

So first I would like to submit for your approval an [informal playlist](http://8tracks.com/threewheels/abha-part-one) for part one of two- I will make a second one after the end.  
Additionally, I would recommend [Facets,](http://readfacets.tumblr.com/) a fanfiction by my partner written as an interactive story, because some of the characters from ABHA and some of the characters from Facets will end up with some overlap eventually in this series of works. Now here's where things may get convoluted: Here's [A Little Light](https://012620e98d9f5e825069ddb043d8cd1b38d3911a-www.googledrive.com/host/0B70GK_EvBQNkaGduUktnSTZQeVk), a completed multiple-ending interactive Twine story written for Facets with characters from ABHA mentioned, which of course is a fanfiction in and of itself, so you see where things are getting a little Inception. Iolite, who was just introduced back in June(?) here, is further explored in A Little Light- if you're curious about her past, A Little Light would be a good place to start if you're feeling impatient.

That's an easy transition into some more in-depth character discussion here and allows me to include some character background information, misc info and artwork given to me by my friends (and of course, some drawn by myself,) so without further ado, here's some more information on Iolite.

 

  
^^^ here (drawn by me) is one of the first things I ever drew Iolite in. (Iolite's Very First Concept looked very different than how she looked now! Here's my [original tumblr post.](http://deathfucker.tumblr.com/post/115992527758)) As some of you may note from the lil comic above here, in some of the original concepts for ABHA it was going to focus much more heavily on a revolutionary-war North American era adventure, since that's mainly what I know about historically speaking! I was going to spend a good deal of time talking about the Iroquois Confederacy and how it influenced early United States law and ideals and how it clashed with European notions of propriety and expectations of governmental obligation. This was attractive for a lot of reasons, mainly that I already know a good amount about North American history, but as I worked on it I thought more and more about how little attention is paid to south american societies and how south america is a somewhat neglected region by fanfic authors, at least in my experience. It was incredibly validating in _Friend Ship_ to see that crewniverse selected northeastern South America as a locale for the crashed gem ship!!

Here's a picture of Iolite's [new, polished-up design](http://40.media.tumblr.com/b48bf6c113b82be68b50cc85efee7e8f/tumblr_nq2n2ha17r1qhlel6o1_1280.png) that would be considered "canon" as of this fanfic, this time with blood n gore included!, and here's some [fanart](http://chrysobabe.tumblr.com/post/125445184090/secretly-you-love-this-do-you-even-wanna-go-free) by my lovely partner Chryso!) Iolite is actually the first fangem I ever designed, and I picked it because I already had a dungeons and dragons pc named Iol (an air genasi) so I was already halfway there! Iolite has been used as a type of rudimentary sun positioning device for centuries- [more on that here-](http://www.nordskip.com/iolite.html) so she's actually a really good choice for the gem that she became. I'm very proud of her. I actually had to do a lot of research on her and [her ship](http://deathfucker.tumblr.com/post/121121607413).  


Iolite, as an antagonist, has a lot of traits that I see frequently. Politically speaking she's sort of Ayn Randish, definitely of the opinion that if she's more powerful than someone else she has (and deserves) a kind of authority over them. Being attracted to power and the drive toward "Being Someone" is something I think most people can relate to, but there's a kind of danger that comes with that sort of "success." I think it's probably for the best that authority and leadership be a hard thing to achieve. In terms of the modern USA for some people we've made it a lot easier than others (eg for white folks, straight folks, men etc.) Iolite, as a gem, has a physical and techological advantage over humans. She doesn't _need_ to exploit them, but she _does_ because she _can._ I think that's very evil, but I don't think Iolite is evil incarnate. I'm not Dickens here. I try to make all my characters people in some way.

(Pic by tumblr user Astropax.)

 

Next I guess would be [Gray](http://chrysobabe.tumblr.com/post/120122847405/deathfuckers-little-gray-pearl-also-known-as-a)! She's gone through a lot of different [outfit changes](http://41.media.tumblr.com/70e42a5595fb6ad252df925e7a23695e/tumblr_npblt6cwlw1qhlel6o1_500.png), but[ here's one ](http://deathfucker.tumblr.com/post/121719946153)that I'm pretty comfortable with for the first part of ABHA.  Fandomwise, there's a kind of opinion that pearls probably look a lot alike, which makes sense, since there's definitely a culturing aspect even just to the creation of the regular gems. To be totally honest, I really only wanted to write a story about Agate, but I realized I couldn't do that from Agate's perspective alone. Gray wasn't even going to be in the story until I realized the only way to demonstrate who she was was to have another gem be there to play off her, so thus, GP was born.

I've been trying to figure out a way to work in the actual story of how she was damaged but honestly I realized there was no way to do that because nobody who was there is in the story still. the tl;dr version is that her head was chopped off, and her gem was actually tossed aside by a gem on her side, and _that,_ not the thing that actually forced her to regen, is what damaged her. Mere chance! She wasn't even aware of what happened until she regenerated and realized everyone was gone and she was dying. She doesn't know who saved her, if you can call turning an immediate death into a protracted one saving, and never will because I never decided who it ought to be. They wouldn't be relevant to the story anyway. Most of the readers I've talked to are actually very attached to Gray, but I'm always worried it's because she seems "too nice" or "too cute"! GP's a fighter who's was, prior to basically becoming mortal, super invested in homeworld morals and ideals. Obviously they both were, but Agate's doubts run a little deeper whereas Gray's are mostly situational. If she wouldn't have been like, dying, she probably would have had no time/patience for Agate and would have whipped her ass into a fine powder.

So, speaking of that, since I'm not covering humans rn the next would be [Agate](http://deathfucker.tumblr.com/post/120487820908)\- her first incarnations were really, REALLY rough- like "I drew it in MSpaint and it's so bad I don't want to upload it, but here it is" bad. Instead here's some [cute fanart](http://extrathickpancake.tumblr.com/post/122448976190/agate-spends-a-lot-of-the-day-taking-naps-widdle), and then some more [cute fanart](http://chrysobabe.tumblr.com/post/119987903620/deathfuckers-gem-agate-or-a-big-baby). (just kidding. Here it is. I'm pretty sure this is either the first or second picture I drew of her.)

I don't remember why I picked Agate, but I'm pretty glad I did, all "have layer" jokes aside- I kind of fumbled with her design for a while, but I think it was all for the best. (Here's [a good picture of her](http://deathfucker.tumblr.com/post/121943453028).) She doesn't change her outfit through the whole story, aside from losing the hat and never getting it back. A couple of people have read in really far to that, but honestly, I just intended it to literally be her being clumsy and losing an accessory she had picked up somewhere. (It was really Chryso's Hat Theory that she sold other folks, and I mean like, it's a good theory! I really like it actually, but it wasn't my original intent.) The other thing people apparently were surprised about when I talked to them was that Agate is actually a pretty short and stocky gem. She's probably closer to the flat 5 foot mark most of the time, whereas GP is a little taller, about even with Iolite in height. Agate is just small and angry.

If I can get it to work, I would like to get some scans of my original notes in my notebook (complete with bad drawings). For now, this info, the soundtrack and links should be plenty of material for you guys to chew on while I finish up the real chapter 8, which I guess is now chapter 9? I was really hoping I could make this chapter 7.5 but I don't think AO3's gonna let me.

I'm back! >B^)

 

 


	9. in which gray pearl learns unpleasant things

Gray Pearl paced in the blue-tinted gloom next to the smashed portal. It was crushingly silent, likely to cut back on the ambient noise from the portal when the harbor had been in full service, as the constant noise from gems moving to and fro would have almost certainly grown irritating to anyone in the adjoining areas. Now, she would have given anything to hear the familiar swishing, resonating noise and see the bright light fill the room, but the only sound she heard was some distant thunder. It was strange- she hadn't noticed any clouds on their way up to the harbor, but she supposed perhaps the shock of everything that had happened had caused her to misremember, or perhaps the damage to her gem ran deeper than she thought and there was no thunder at all, or perhaps it had been raining all day. While she had never caught herself making those kinds of mistakes, she could no longer be certain that it wasn't the case- she felt useless, something she had mostly shed in her time with the humans. They were grateful even when the mildest of gem abilities were put to their aid, even basic analytical tasks like determining how stone was likely to fracture and recalling which other ones it would fit into for wall construction lessened the load on their meticulous work. She had felt valuable, like an asset to the people she tried very hard to fit into, and now she did not.

Straining to hear what was going on outside the warp room, her breathing seemed loud and wrong, as if she had somehow forgotten how to do it properly. Becoming aware of it only frustrated her further and, riddled with guilt, she stared at the band of translucent blue as if it would somehow turn clear and reveal to her what was going on outside between Agate and the humans on horseback. She could break it, and try to look out, but that risked compromising her position. She regretted not telling Agate she couldn't summon her weapon sooner. She regretted leaving her behind at the mercy of the strangers. She regretted not leaving a few days earlier and perhaps saving the human teenagers on the beach. She could not settle her nerves, and found her vision drawn to the tall hammer they had left behind: it no longer seemed romantic or beautiful. The gem who placed it there was almost certainly dead, just as Agate and herself would be if nothing changed. What was romantic about a gem who was acting out of desperation to save their own life or the life of their friends or, if not that, had probably been confused and scared as to why they had been ordered to destroy the warp in the first place? It was sad. It was pathetic. She had been foolish to think anything different. She, if anyone, knew how swiftly things occurred in war. She had never seen anyone pull any heroic last stand or brave charge to victory like she had always pictured when her superiors or her friends told stories. She wasn't even sure what gem had killed her before she had regenerated, only an impact to the side of her neck. She hadn't even felt the pain- it just felt like a sharp blow, and then nothing. In a puff of light, her body had gone. She had awoken on the outskirts of the foggy battlefield, dust in her throat, and had been alone. It had only taken her moments to find the mar in her gem and realize what had happened.

She told herself she should never have left Agate- she had seen how she fought and how she acted under pressure when they had been attacked by the corrupted gem those thousands of years ago, and she certainly hadn't done much to enhance her combat abilities since then. On Homeworld, they would have been drilled and probably occupied with some mission or another on some distant planet, they would have been able to spend their time bettering themselves and their people- but she couldn't think about that now. Gray Pearl knew that if she spent time thinking about what could have happened had this or that not happened she would never be able to act in the present. Her chance of going back to Homeworld and being accepted there were almost nil, something she had accepted- or at least, she'd thought she had. Though she was almost certain that the humans posed no inherent threat to Agate, despite her sub par combat abilities, she knew accidents were inevitable. What kind of a soldier would she be if she allowed her only friend of her own species to face a mutual foe alone? Gray climbed onto the broken portal and lifted the hammer. It wasn't her weapon, but it would have to do. With the size and power of the hammer, she could certainly get a few good swings in if she caught them off-guard, and perhaps that would be enough. There was no point in leaving it here, not when it was still needed. She looked down at the cracked warp. Why had she not taken it before, when they were here? What could it possibly memorialize- the fact that this war had ruined their lives? There was nothing worth saving in that. The hammer was heavy in her hands. Resolving herself, she headed for the door. As the doors separated she heard the atonal bang of metal meeting metal and unfamiliar screams, and she darted for the beach.

Upon her arrival, though, she did not see what she had expected- the riders had been arrested in their pursuit by an armored stranger, and a tall and unfamiliar shadow was cast over the beach, and Agate stood stock still. Part of her was relieved- this could be a valuable ally- but part of her was more afraid. She could not afford to be seen at this distance with an unfamiliar weapon- whether this stranger was friend or foe would have to remain to be seen. Gray considered her options, and headed for the back doorway, looping back behind the building and heading into the woods. Hopefully, they would provide her enough cover to sneak closer to Agate, and if she was in danger, she could come from a short distance and provide at least a brief moment of support. Resolving this as her plan, she used the towering roots of the massive trees around her to conceal her approach, which was slow and careful- if she ruined her ability to spring upon this potential enemy, the whole plan would be ruined. The heat poured down upon her. Drops of water from the thick emerald leaves high above her startled her each time they touched her neck and shoulderblades, the rustling of the underbrush and the sound of the water on the beach providing just enough background noise for her not to be comfortable that she was alone. She kept the sledgehammer low so as not to catch the light, hoping the stranger did not hear how the birds grew silent as she passed beneath them.

Gray watched the stranger kill the human riders and their frightening, unfamiliar mounts, and though the scene was macabre, she felt a sense of grim victory over these foreigners who had almost certainly killed the young humans of the continent that they had lived in for so many thousands of years. As the stranger released her weapon into a puff of glittering light, she hesitated, unsure of whether or not she should reveal herself. Although she doubted that a rebel gem would kill humans with such impunity, she wasn't sure, and neither could she clearly hear the conversation that appeared to be transpiring between her and Agate as she approached. She heard her ask if Agate was a gem, which only told Gray what she already knew- that that was, indeed, what this newcomer was- but couldn't hear anything Agate said. Her voice was normally quite coarse and didn't carry very well, and now more than ever that was an inconvenience compared to the strange gem, whose voice seemed to project naturally. Carefully leaving some distance between her and the pair, she crept closer. The stranger's eyes were a the pale cold blue of a hazy sky. They darted over Agate, and Gray felt defensive. Agate did not seem secure or comfortable with this other gem's presence, but the stranger seemed quite causal, though admittedly rather boisterous. The strange gem did not seem particularly aggressive: she was even laughing as they talked. Looking her over, she saw a deep blue gem on her thigh, though that didn't tell her much about what she was. Her gem was dark and very clear, roughly oval, with pointed north-south ends. The stranger could be a kyanite, or some kind of odd sapphire, or a very clear sodalite, or some kind of cordierite- there were so many deep blue gems, it would be difficult to tell from this distance. Although she remained a little uneasy, Gray Pearl began to relax. Identifying another gem was something she had done so many hundreds of times, milling over what she knew was a reliable task, one she was very used to. Certainly, if this other gem had killed the strange humans who had murdered the others on the beach, she couldn't be all bad, and Gray saw no stars on her clothing, which was a good sign. Perhaps Agate was just nervous- she wasn't very social to begin with. Surely, at some point, Agate would gesture or look back toward the building where she would expect Gray Pearl to be hiding, and Gray could come out of the woods and introduce herself. Perhaps, she thought, this gem even had some technology from Homeworld intact! Maybe she could signal some passing craft, or perhaps she was part of some sleeper cell- perhaps the war wasn't really over at all, and they could not only return home, but return home _victorious._

Gray Pearl's hands trembled on the handle of the gleaming hammer. She felt the heat of real hope arc through her. The idea set feelings inside her that she had not anticipated or really wanted to feel. The thought of being truly happy, not just satisfaction at being accepted among the humans or quiet contentment at participating in their societies, was a dangerous lure. Barely, she caught herself before she stood and called to the stranger, who now took Agate's shoulder and led her forward down the beach. They walked toward a strange and towering craft that floated in the harbor, casting the strange, angular shadow that covered the beach. Gray hastened after them, but they were heading toward the water, and she could not follow without charging after them onto the glittering green sand. She almost did, but Agate's promise that she would be right behind her halted her. As grouchy and frustrating as Agate could be, she had never lied to her. She stared, unblinking, after the pair as they headed toward the ship on the water. She felt like an animal chained to the ground. Gray Pearl had trusted Agate and begun to believe, truly, that she would be there with her regardless of whatever happened. Agate had promised her she would be there until she died, and to see her leaving with another gem- an intact gem- brought back further feelings she had thought that she had laid to rest. Unsure whether to intervene, she followed helplessly from within the treeline, watching out over the water at the craft they approached. There were twelve oars were in two staggered rows, three towering masts with triangular white sails casting the strange shadow she had noticed earlier. The oars did not behave as any oars should, and they bent at angles in the water- it was unlike any craft she had seen before (and, in fact, it was unlike any she would ever see again.) Near the waterline was a stripe of a matte, gray material she did not recognize, and pointed towards the shore was a sloping, pointed ram that gleamed a strange gold-orange in the daylight. It reminded Gray Pearl of some strange animal, and as she looked at it, she felt watched. As she looked from the bow to the low, boxy forecastle and past that to the fearful, curious human faces peering over the side, those, too, looked strange to her- skin colors both darker and paler than she had ever seen before, all human women, some with lines etched prematurely on their faces. She looked back at the new gem and worried exactly what kind of ally Agate had found.

From behind she suddenly felt a hard shove to her shoulders, toppling her forward onto her hands on the coarse ground. Before she could turn to confront her attacker, small hands grabbed her dress and threw her onto her back, and Gray looked up into the wide, bloodshot black eyes of a young human teenager. In one hand, she held a large, sharp stone knife, drawn tensely back. Pearl had certainly, in her long history, been threatened more violently with more intimidating weapons, but was held at bay by the idea that if that knife hurt her enough to force her to retreat into her gem, she may not be able to return- certainly there were gems who, while not totally destroyed, were no longer able to create their bodies and function as they ought to. She did not want to be one of those gems.

_“Don't move,”_ the stranger hissed. Her voice was hoarse. It was clear that she had been crying, but she did not look tearful now, but horribly serious. Gray Pearl looked her over quickly, trying to place her language and attire- she wore more jewelry than clothes, and her long black hair stuck to her narrow shoulders from the heat and dampness. She appeared to be from one of the groups of humans living primarily on the islands and coasts north of there, but it was not uncommon for traders or families to live separately from these places. Leaving the hammer on the ground beside her, Gray raised her hands slowly.

“Wait,” she spoke softly, trying to assure the terrified girl she meant no harm. “I'm not going to do anything. Please, don't hurt me.”

She hesitated, adjusting her grip on the knife, and Gray saw she was shaking.

“I don't believe you- you could hit me with that hammer- you could kill me, like that blue woman-”

“You don't mean- that gem?” Gray Pearl was shocked. She shook her head. “The humans riding those animals were dangerous, I'm sure she wouldn't-”

The girl interrupted her forcefully. “That's not what I mean! I'm talking about my friends.”

“Your.. friends?” Gray echoed her hesitantly. A terrible suspicion came to her, but she tried to remain calm and gentle. “What's your name?”

“Itime.” The girl said anxiously, lowering her knife slightly. “It's a nickname.”

Gray recognized the word- it meant calm in an adjective context, like one might describe a sea or a gathering. It was an unusual name, but she let that be. Leaving the hammer on the ground, she shifted upwards to sit against a nearby tree, getting her bearings, as they watched one another cautiously. “Where are you from, Itime?”

“North, on the coast,” she said, anxiously. “I live with my aunt and my parents and a couple other families. They know I'm out here. They're expecting us back.”

“You're Taino, aren't you?”

Itime looked her over, cautiously. “Yes,” Itime began. She sounded hesitant. “Well, half. My dad is Kalina, but I live with my mother. We only live around Taino people.”

“I've met some of your people,” Gray said. It was true, though she had met hundreds of humans, and rarely recalled specifics of those she encountered in passing. “They're good fishermen,” she offered. She knew they were theocratic, but there was no classy way to work that into a compliment to a young girl.

“Yeah.” Itime didn't meet her eyes. She seemed suspicious of her.

“I'm not going to hurt you.”

“Can you promise me?”

Gray nodded. She looked into the human's dark eyes. “I promise.”

Itime seemed cautious. She pushed her knife into her belt. “Okay. All right.”

Gray watched her as she pulled her long hair over her shoulder and toyed with it anxiously. Although she wasn't sure how safe she was shifting the conversation toward the events that had occurred on the beach before her and Agate had come, Gray Pearl knew that this small human had answers she couldn't otherwise get. She remained sitting, concerned jumping up too quickly would make her feel defensive. “You knew the humans on the beach?”

“My friends,” Itime reiterated.

“What happened?”

The young woman didn't speak. She pretended as if she had not heard her. Gray repeated herself, a little more forcefully, and Itime looked up briefly before returning to her fussing.

“I don't know.”

Gray gave her a skeptical look. Not only was she all of a sudden very preoccupied, she was lying- and obviously at that.

“You just said something happened. I know you saw it, and now my friend walked off with that blue gem- if she's in danger it's important that I know what's going on, and it would mean a lot to me if you would help.” Gray Pearl moved up the tree slightly, standing up a bit, and this caught the human's attention. She now watched her carefully, fingers slowing. She glanced from Gray Pearl to the hammer on the ground. Frustrated, Gray continued.

“Look, I made a promise I wouldn't hurt you, and I meant it, but please- _please_ tell me what happened.”

“I said I don't know! I wasn't looking... not for all of it, anyway.”

“Well, can you tell me what you _heard?_ Why you were here?”

Itime nodded, staring back over Gray's shoulder. Gray followed her gaze to the ship, which silently backed from the beach and toward the coast. Whipping back around, Gray looked up at her pleadingly. “I have to follow that ship,” she said, urgently.

Itime seemed surprised. “What?”

“My friend is on it- Agate, she- I don't know what happened. I have to talk to her.”

Itime seemed unsure, but she stepped back. “Okay,” she said. “Let's go.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said yeah. Let's go. It's going north, right?”

Gray rose to her feet, watching the girl carefully as she picked up her hammer again. She did not seem particularly concerned, and Gray Pearl felt a little confused. She hadn't really intended her comment to be an invitation, but it apparently could not be helped. Glancing uneasily at Itime and the ship, she nodded, and stepped out onto the beach. The human girl followed, watching her curiously, but not as defensively.

“You're not going to hit me with that, right?”

Gray nodded. “Of course. You don't have to worry.”

Itime nodded along with her, seeming to convince herself of the truthfulness of Gray's words. “Okay. Okay. Let's go north.”

Together, with Gray Pearl's eyes fixed on the strange path, they hurried down the beach. It was far faster than climbing through the woods, and though the curve of the bay soon ended and they took off into a more footpath-like area again, Itime seemed confident they were doing the right thing and soon took the lead.

“My family lives up this way,” Itime explained. “We're one of the only ones on this coast for a while. If we hurry, maybe we can beat them there if that's where they're going- it's just a few hours, and it's not hard. I've come this way a million times with lots of stuff.”

“Is that why you were in the woods?” Gray asked.

“I came down with some other people from around where my family lives, and my cousin. He wants to- to learn to trade, so sometimes when we have things we think other people might like we go together to see how it goes, so long as our parents don't need us and it's okay with the cacique. We were going to sit there in those buildings for the night, because we heard some bad stories about things up north and we wanted to be careful, so we came south and didn't travel at night.”

She fell silent for a little while as the hurried through tall, yellow grass.

“What did you hear from them? If you don't mind.”

Itime looked indifferent. “Strange-looking people. Sickness. War or something. You hear a lot of things, especially from older people, you know? I never know what they're making up to prove a point and what's really real.”

Gray Pearl wasn't sure if that was supposed to be funny or not, so she laughed just a little, very awkwardly. The hammer felt heavy, but her fear spurred her on, and she managed to attach it loosely to the shoulder strap of her bag so at least it wasn't idle in her hands. They were not sure what they might encounter there, but Itime knew this northeastern coast better than Gray did, and even if they skipped ahead of the ship Gray was confident she could find it. Gems, she felt, were naturally drawn to one another. She had always heard that, and she believed it. Beyond that, Agate would find her, even if she couldn't get back. She had always come through for her in the past.

They walked through the afternoon, until it began to get dark and Itime seemed unsure of her path. Gray knew there would be no way for them to see the ship even if they did come through the roads back to the water, and regardless, the risk of making a wrong turn was too much. As Itime hesitated at a crossroads, seeming anxious, Gray decided to cut her a break.

“Let's stop for a while,” Gray sighed.

Itime looked back at her. “We don't have to,” she insisted. “We can make it. I'm sure it isn't far. I've been this way so many times.”

“If you aren't absolutely sure of which way we should go, we shouldn't go. I don't want to risk making a wrong turn.”

Reluctantly, Itime seemed to accept this. “I guess that's fine. We should sit to the side of the road.”

Defeated, the two of them moved into the sparser woods at the side of the road. Fiddling with her shoulder strap, Gray looked around nervously. 

“We don't have to stay very long, but I'm tired, too.”

Itime nodded. “That sounds good. Are you going to sleep?”

“I don't really need to, but I'd like to sit down. I'll start a fire. Do you mind watching my things?”

“No, I don't mind. I have my knife, just in case.”

This was good enough. The weight was growing unbearable, and Gray set down her bag and the hammer and set off into the darkness. The repetitive movements of her searching and detached attentiveness to the sounds and movements in the woods around her gave her something consoling to do that, by now, were nearly second-nature, and it took her mind off the horror of being abandoned with a stranger who, hours before, had been ready to kill her and probably would have succeeded. This had become one of the normal phases of her life on Earth: a quiet, simmering fear that was excruciatingly difficult to rid herself of. At times like this, on nights like this, some strange worry would return to her. It could be any number of things, but they all followed the same pattern and pushed the same writhing snakes of cold dread into her gut: that she was dying, and would die alone, because she didn't truly belong with anyone. Gray Pearl was never sure what to do with this information, because sometimes it seemed like a joke and sometimes it made her want to kill herself, just to wrap things up. She sometimes distracted herself knotting her thoughts into rope, counting them over and over, pushing the cloying grime of anguished fear from her lungs with each breath and each knot. Quipus were something she didn't think Agate ever learned to interpret, so it was okay. As far as the humans who did, she kept things like that tucked away from them, lest they ask what she was counting. How many days and years had she spent with the humans of the cities and towns she had lived with, using the color and life in their brief lives to fill the void in her own? Gray had no idea- she had not counted that. Whether it was right or wrong, socializing always kept her mind from her worries, and if nothing else, Agate had always been there. As she filled her arms with the driest material she could find, she could not find peace. Grimly, she smiled, and headed back to Itime, who was still sitting next to their things.

“Hey there,” she said, trying to sound pleasant. Itime did not respond. Accepting this, Gray set into her bag for her flint and tinder. “Couldn't sleep?” she asked.

“Not really.” She sounded weary. “I keep thinking about my cousin.”

Now working on her fire, Gray kept her eyes on her task. “Oh?” She prompted.

“Yeah, I don't know. Maybe if I had done something it would have been better.”

“I don't think so. Gems are very strong.”

“But I could have distracted her,” Itime insisted. “My parents are going to be mad.”

“I don't know about that.”

Itime shrugged. “I don't know. I'm not a great daughter. Nobody even wants to marry me.”

Satisfied with the safety of her small orange flame, Gray Pearl looked up. “I think they'll be glad that you're alive.”

“Yeah, well, I'm sure my aunt thought her child was great, too.” Itime sounded disheartened. She picked at the grass, somewhat aggressively.

“I know how you feel,” Gray told her, gently. Itime stopped pulling at the ground and looked up slightly, past her dark hair. Sighing, Gray continued. “There's nothing I can say that will make what happened not horrible, because what happened was horrible. But I can say that it wasn't your fault, because that's true as well. It isn't your fault that you were there. It wasn't their fault, either. No one should have died.”

Itime looked back down. “But they _did,_ though.”

Gray persisted. “Itime, sometimes when bad things happen to people, you feel like you've got no right to be hurt by it if other people had it worse. I'm... not sure that's right. You shouldn't have had to be there. It wasn't fair that you were subjected to that.”

“I guess.”

“Well, how do you think your friends would feel if the situation was reversed?”

“I don't know,” Itime said, picking her way through the shattered branches Gray Pearl had brought before tossing one onto her fire. “I guess... it wasn't really how I said.”

Gray looked at her. Her dark cheeks had turned scarlet and now she was at her nails again. “Maybe they'd be glad if I was dead.”

“I'm sure that's not true,” Gray said, a little shocked.

“We weren't really friends,” Itime said softly. “I just said that so we seemed like we were. They didn't really like me very much, I guess because my father was Kalina, maybe- well, I guess I can't blame it on that-” She looked frustrated. “I'm not going to say Taino and Kalina people were never at odds- of course, I mean, we're- they're different nations, you know? A lot of people don't get along. They've had differences, but I don't think that was why they never wanted anything to do with me. They simply never liked me. Maybe, I think, I try-” she hesitated. Itime looked down at the ground, wincing. “I _tried_ too hard. They thought I was weird, I didn't fit in. You know.”

Gray Pearl didn't really _know,_ but tried to be understanding. She had just begun to speak when a somewhat nasty and unexpected urge came over her. She wanted, for just a moment, to say that she couldn't relate- that she did fit in with humans, that they liked her, and she couldn't imagine what was so wrong with Itime that they wouldn't want to affiliate themselves with her. This was an unusually spiteful thing to cross her mind, and she was a little alarmed at it. On Homeworld, she had been regarded as a pleasant and personable gem. She tried to take her mind off this sudden urge and be a bit more sympathetic to Itime's plight. “I was involved in a war a long time ago,” Gray told her. “I was injured during the course of it, and because of that, I'm not going to live very long.”

She hadn't intended that to come out quite as flat and casual as it came out, but there it was. Itime looked up at her, a little startled.

“What do you mean? You might die any time? Like right now?” She sounded a little nervous at this prospect.

“No, not exactly, it's just that... I know what it's like to not feel like you're fitting in. Perhaps not exactly the way that you do, but it doesn't feel very nice to know that you have... an end date, I suppose, when other gems do not.” This did not seem to console her young human friend very much.

“So I don't think you're weird just because you don't feel like you belong.” Gray Pearl said quickly, trying to be consoling. She watched Itime fiddling with her nails, and decided to try again. “You know, I was upset that other gems were killed in the war, even though I didn't really know them personally.”

“It's not that. I'm not upset. Things happen to people, right? Like you said, I couldn't have done anything. I was too upset to think or move and I just curled up on the ground, like a little animal.” She paused. “Maybe I just feel angry, or cowardly or... something. I don't really know how I feel. I shouldn't have tried to paint it like we were that close.”

“But you still cared about them, clearly,” Gray insisted.

Itime shrugged. “Maybe. I don't know.” She looked uncomfortable, and Gray decided that it might be best to drop the subject. She cleared her throat awkwardly.

“So, your name...? Or nickname, I suppose?” Gray tried again. Itime shrugged. “Yeah. It's from my dad. My mother was always trying to calm me down when I was born, so he said _he_ thought _I_ thought it was my real name. I wish they would have asked me, but what could I do? I was a baby, it's not like they understood me.” Gray Pearl made a contemplative sound.

“Would you rather I called you something else?”

Itime shrugged. “It is how it is. I don't really mind anymore- it's just become my name. I guess I do get upset easily, so maybe it's a good reminder to try to keep myself together.” She picked at her fingernails idly. “I'm sure they meant it well.”

Gray Pearl thought about Axinite. She wondered if it had just become her name the way Itime had become this girl's. There were many things that she wished that she could have asked her, but had missed the chance to. She had seemed to accept the nickname as an inevitability- just something that gems did, and thus, had never really brought it up to them. Human life was terribly fleeting, compared to hers, and on some level she had assumed she would always have the chance to talk to her whenever she wanted. This thought disconcerted her. 

The fire popped and one of the sticks broke in half, glimmering internal combustion shifting in fluid patterns on its interior. Itime was braiding her long, wavy hair into tiny braids in a movement that seemed nearly reflexive and pulling them out in a movement that seemed equally thoughtless. Seeming to sense Gray's awkwardness, she spoke this time, changing the subject again.

“I thought maybe she was some kind of spirit,” she said softly. “I wondered if she wanted to come into the rivers and drown us. But instead when she walked out of the water and chased everybody out. She grabbed one of them by his hair and there was a lot of light, like something really shiny catching the sun suddenly. I looked away then, but I heard... I kind of heard what was going on, and... I don't know, it was a lot of screaming and running, and it seemed for a while like they got away. It was quiet for a long time, but I didn't move, because I was scared. Then I heard my cousin talking to her. I heard him tell her that our family would come back for revenge, but I don't think she knew what he was saying, because she was yelling something at him that I didn't understand either. He stopped trying to scare her after that and he began to cry and beg her not to kill him, but she did.” Her shoulders slumped, and her voice wavered. “I just want to go home.”

Gray Pearl was reeling. She did not know what had prompted her to suddenly talk about her encounter with the gem, but clearly this gem was no ally to her, nor to Agate. She could not understand why a gem, even a prideful homeworld one, would bother torturing and slaughtering these human children. They posed no threat to her kind, and these were not the angry, rebellious humans who allied themselves with Rose Quartz and her ilk- the great-great grandchildren of those humans would have been dead for hundreds and hundreds of years. She could not stop herself from asking why, though this was mostly rhetorical. She couldn't imagine that Itime would know the reason. If Gray didn't, she certainly wouldn't, but Itime answered anyway.

“I don't know.” Her hands paused. “When I met you, I was scared that we someplace sacred where we weren't allowed, like we were offending your gods? But if not, I guess she's just... not like you.”

“We don't really have... gods.”

She wanted to say that a gem that did what the stranger did was not a gem she would want to be associated with, and that she would never do what she had, but the words caught in her throat. She looked at her hands, ashen in the firelight. Her fingers looked very thin, and the creases over her joints looked very dark. There were certainly times when she had felt less than proud of her efficacy in the war. This was one of those times. Gray Pearl could not honestly say that she had never killed a human- perhaps occasionally even with more force than was truly required, even. There had been certain things that her missions had required of her, as a soldier, and this is what she told herself now, as she looked at the blackness of the charred wood on her fingers.

Itime seemed to process this comment. Then, curiously: “But you still take care of your relatives who die?”

Gray looked up. “I'm sorry?”

Very awkwardly, Itime glanced at Gray's bag. “I mean, the... in your bag, it's your family, right?”

Reflexively, Gray covered it with her hand. “You looked in my bag?”

Anxiously, Itime tapped her foot. “I'm sorry, I- I was just curious. I didn't know.”

“They aren't my relatives, they're just- they're other gems, we're not related.”

“It's not weird,” Itime said, with an unusually consoling and chipper tone. “My dad has some of my grandparents' bones, and we give them gifts and talk to them so they know they're not alone-”

“Gems don't do that.”

“But you're taking care of them, so they don't feel alone-”

“They're _dead,_ Itime. They don't _feel_ anything.” An unpleasant, cold tone seeped into Gray's voice.

“But that's not true, everyone dies, and-”

Tersely, Gray gripped the bag, slipping the strap back over her shoulder. “Not us.”

“But what about you?”

Gray did not want to think about this, and the flippant attitude with which Itime discussed it disgusted her. She looked away.

“I- it's different, I'm... most gems don't... die like this.” Her voice faded slightly.

“But you do. You're just like us,” Itime said, optimistically. This did not make Gray Pearl feel any better. On the contrary, it soured her mood further. She did not understand what would possess Itime to rifle through her belongings and tell her that it was fine that she was dying a slow and nauseating death because it meant she was _just like them_. Irritated, she adjusted the hammer on her back and looked back down at the fire. Not taking the hint that Gray Pearl did not really want to engage on this issue, Itime pressed on.

“I mean, I'm sure it's not that strange- plenty of other gems probably have the same problem.”

Making a sound that was somehow both a scoff and a sigh, Gray Pearl stood up.

“You don't know anything about this. You know _nothing_ about us.”

Itime stood with her. “Where are you going?” She sounded afraid.

“I've stayed here long enough.”

“You're leaving?”

“Yes. You need to go home, and I need to find Agate.”

“No,” Itime objected, fearfully. “Don't go, I- I need your help, there's no way I can get back on my own-”

“You've been this way hundreds of times before- you already said that. Don't lie to me.”

“But that gem-”

“That gem is long gone. She won't be coming back for you, because if she wanted to, she would have done it already. I have to find Agate because she could need help, and I'm not going to let her get hurt.”

“What about me?”

“What _about_ you?” Gray Pearl retorted, realizing after she said it how vicious it sounded. Itime halted in her movement, dismayed. She almost wanted to apologize, but for some reason, she couldn't. She scowled.

“You're just slowing me down.”

“Wait,” Itime begged. “Wait!”

But Gray Pearl did not wait. She headed into the darkness, feeling somewhat trespassed upon, and picked a direction on the road nearly at random. Once she was sure she was not being followed, she set off, not caring whether she was wrong or right. As the dawn came, gold on the foggy horizon, Gray did not know which way she had come from or which way she was meant to go. She walked continually, as if in a dream, holding the vitreous-handled hammer, shifting it back and forth between her hands as they tired. After some time, she found herself walking upon a typical small group of round houses with thatched sides and pointed roofs, scattered at the side of a slow river. It was not too early to see people moving around, but it was eerily quiet, something that made the hair on the back of Gray's neck stand up. Although she could not be sure, this was almost certainly the village that Itime had described, unless Gray had walked far further than she thought she had. From the fog, a soft tapping sound caught her attention, and she moved close to the nearest building, squinting into the diffused light. The lack of curiosity in the strange sound from any people who lived there was profoundly unnatural. There was something deeply wrong.

A sharp cry startled her. Gray ran towards the sound, and saw a man dressed much like the armored rider pulling a young girl from the doorway of a house. She dug her heels in and struggled as the man spoke to her harshly. As he pulled her, Gray's concern was validated- it was Itime. She pulled her knife and struck him, the knife glancing from his armor with a harsh clang. Gray saw the man reach to his waist, towards a long straight sword.

“Get your hands off of her!” Gray shouted, clearing the distance between her and the man in seconds. Startled, the man looked up, his hand straying from his sword, and Itime jerked her arm away, shoving him with all her small human might. He did not seem to understand her words, and said something angry that she did not understand, either. As she advanced angrily, Itime ran to her. Not entirely to Gray Pearl's surprise, the human seemed afraid, and stepped back from her. She looked down at Itime.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she said, but she sounded unsure. Gray glanced at the strange human, and then back to Itime.

“I'm sorry I left,” she said softly.

“I'm sorry I went through your stuff,” Itime responded shakily.

“Don't worry about it,” Gray said, and took a few more steps toward the armored human, raising her hammer.

He put his hands up, and called a name that she identified instantly: _Iolite._ This did not add up. Hadn't Itime said she saw her kill the foreign humans? Why would they be asking for her? She did not have time to ask the answer, as his request was fulfilled in a fairly timely manner. Astride a white horse came the gem that Gray had once hopefully watched on the beach, but distressingly, she was alone- Agate was nowhere in sight. The man barked angrily at Iolite, gesturing toward Itime and Gray before she put her hand up, cutting him off. She replied condescendingly, and he seemed to object before she grew annoyed and spoke again, finishing with an angry “That's enough!” and this time Gray understood her words. The man slunk off into the mist, and Iolite turned to Itime and Gray Pearl with a prideful toss of her thick, wavy hair.

“My, my, my- _another_ strange gem?” She said, but there was no hint of surprise in her voice.

Something in her tone frightened Gray, and she pushed Itime behind her. She wanted to scream, but she kept her voice level. Grimly, she nodded in recognition, and her voice sounded harsher than normal as she acknowledged her: “You're Iolite?”

“I am,” she said, nodding towards Gray Pearl. “My reputation proceeds me?” She turned the reins in her hand tightly, steering her heavy-breathing white mare in a curve alongside the human and Gray, who turned as well, keeping her eyes on the big blue gem.

“I was not aware of you, though, little gray pearl... but I must say, and no offense- you don't look too well.”

Gray's face felt hot. She spoke as clearly as she could.

“Stay away from us.”

“Away from _us?”_ Iolite echoed, perplexed. “This is your little human, here? Is she your crewman? Your prisoner of war? Your slave?”

“She's my friend.”

Iolite laughed, a loud clear laugh that echoed in the silent town. “I'm so sorry! The social scene must be awful here to drive you to such things.” She looked Gray up and down. “You aren't a crystal gem, are you? I've heard they enjoy their little mammalian dalliances. Rather distasteful, if you ask me! You wouldn't fuck a _rat,_ right?” She shot Gray a gleaming smile, the thin lines of cyan beneath her eyes curving slightly as they narrowed.

Gray breathed in deeply. “No, I'm not.”

From behind her, Itime whispered up at Gray.

“What is she saying?”

“Nothing good,” Gray Pearl answered quietly. She felt Itime's small hand gripping her fearfully, and she struggled to keep herself steady and strong for her sake. Inside, she was terrified of this strong, strange gem, of whatever she could have done to this town and of what she could have done to Agate. She knew what she was capable of, but who was to say that what she had heard about was her limit? If she assumed Itime was her prisoner, who was to say that Agate wasn't hers?

Iolite seemed dissatisfied with the fact that she did not know the languages of the land, and looked markedly uncomfortable when Gray spoke to Itime.

“What are you saying?” she demanded, and Gray scowled at her.

“Nothing good,” she repeated, and Iolite rolled her eyes, affecting the same condescending attitude she had earlier.

“All right. All right, fine. I don't want to be adversaries, here, dear. We're all gems, yes? And I'm sure you must be terribly lonely.”

“I've been fine.”

“Oh?” Iolite said, raising her dark eyebrows. She reined in her horse. “Let's not play games here, little Pearl. I know you're looking for someone, and I somehow doubt it's this silly little girl behind you. You've been following me, yes? And don't pretend it isn't true, my crew has spotted you several times.”

Gray was not sure how to proceed. Ideally, she would get Agate off the ship and away from Iolite, or at least get her alone long enough to help her- if she was even still alive.

“Yes,” Gray admitted. “I... I could tell it wasn't human, I was curious.”

Iolite frowned a little, almost pouting. “And yet you didn't see fit to introduce yourself? How perplexing.”

“I was afraid.”

Iolite considered this, and appeared to accept it. “Well, I didn't build her for parties,” she admitted. “My _Anjo de Morte_ is for travel, and, of course, war.”

“The Gem War is over,” Gray said, cautiously. “What war are you in?”

“The Gem War? Oh dear,” Iolite said, almost pityingly. “It's nothing like that. I've become a bit of a hired sword, you see.” She winked, raising one hand in air quotations around the phrase. “A privateer, if you will. My religious companions here were eager to have my particular talents at their side, though I think perhaps they overestimate my loyalty. Let's be frank, since these creatures can't understand- the gem war was awful, because that was a _real_ war. These are petty human affairs, and I'm in it for fun- and, of course, whatever else I can gain. These little animals pose no threat to me.”

“What else could you _possibly_ gain?”

“Oh, land, labor, pretty things. What gem doesn't appreciate good architecture and beautiful artifacts? Of course, it's hard to have it appreciated fully, as few uncorrupted gems as there are around here.”

Gray could not believe that after all she had seen and heard, Iolite seemed to be trying to win her over. With Itime behind her, she began to take a few tentative steps backwards. Iolite did not move, but watched her from her tall post atop her horse.

“I wouldn't recommend you do that, Pearl. You may be able to outrun me, but that little human certainly can't, and besides- don't you want to see the other gems I have with me? And, of course, my crew is human, if you have such interest in them.”

Her mention of _gems_ alarmed Gray. So far as she knew, there was only one gem aboard Iolite's ship, and that was Agate. If there was more than one, she wanted to know who.

“All right. I am curious. I'll follow you,” Gray Pearl said, trying to sound sincere.

Iolite smiled. “Wonderful! It's just this way- and don't worry, I'll keep a close eye on you.”

Gray Pearl smiled insincerely back, but Iolite seemed not to notice, and spurred her horse off, into the mist. Without looking back, Gray spoke to Itime.

“You should get out of here.”

“What? No, I'm not leaving.”

“You don't have to stay here. It could be dangerous.”

“No. I want to help you, if I can,” she insisted. “I don't want you to lose your friend, too.”

Gray Pearl was hesitant, but she nodded.

“They took everybody,” Itime whispered. “My parents, everybody, they're all gone. I don't know where or why. I got home and when I walked out, that man grabbed me- I don't want to be here anyway. That blue woman probably knows where they are."

“If you come with me, I'm not sure that I can protect you,” Gray warned her.

Itime looked up at her, and smiled awkwardly. “That's okay. I'm not sure I can protect you, either.”

Slowly, they followed Iolite into the gold morning fog.


End file.
